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LIFE IN THE ORIENT 




































LIFE 

IN THE ORIENT 


WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 

BY 

K. H. BASMAJIAN 

n 

} 

i > 

o ) » 

> > * 

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 

150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK CITY 






COPYRIGHT, 1899, 1910, 

BY KRIKOR HAGOP BASMAJIAN. 



©CI.A265011 



TO THE 


AMERICAN MISSIONARIES 


WHO BY THEIR TRIALS AND 

TRIUMPHS 


ARE UPBUILDING 


THE KINGDOM OF EMMANUEL 

IN TURKEY, 

AND 



TO THE MEMORY OF 

THE MARTYRS OF ARMENIA 

WHO DIED FOR CHRIST AND FATHERLAND, 
THIS HUMBLE VOLUME 


IS SINCERELY DEDICATED 













PREFACE 


TO THE THIRD AND REVISED EDITION. 


To bring the last edition of this work up to the 
present conditions in Turkey, some slight revisions 
are made, new chapters added, and entirely new 
illustrations have been introduced. 

I beg the indulgence of my readers to the fol¬ 
lowing statement. As a strong believer in all 
Christian missions over the world, let me say 
that the American missionaries in the empire of 
Turkey are engaged entirely in religious, educa¬ 
tional, and philanthropic work. Their work is not 
political, social, and commercial, but in the truest 
sense they are evangelical messengers. I believe 
too that they play a prominent r6le in the forma¬ 
tion of the national character of the people, as 
this was conspicuously manifested in Bulgaria 
after her independence. 

It is my earnest prayer that the success of their 
labors, which has been so marked in the past, be 
greater in the future, and the seed sown in unsea- 



8 


PREFACE. 


sonable times may bring, in a more favorable at¬ 
mosphere, multifold results. 

The chief interest of the United States in Tur¬ 
key lies in her missionaries. Their presence 
brought the United States into favor in Turk¬ 
ish diplomatic circles. At present our Govern¬ 
ment has no political prestige in Turkey such as 
the European nations have, but I believe that 
morally the United States is equal, if not superior, 
to every European power in that country. The 
pretended friends and the sincere enemies of the 
Ottoman Empire have tried their utmost and ex¬ 
hausted all their diplomacy to solve “ the Eastern 
question ’ ’ and many other perplexing matters 
without much success. May we not hope that in 
due time the United States will, for the sake of 
peace and humanity, solve the chronic problems 
of that unhappy land, and help to introduce there 
the truest and noblest constitutional govern¬ 
ment ? Then, and only then, the ideal motto of 
the “Young Turkey Party,” as well as of many 
others, “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,” will 
be realized. 

The writer expresses his obligations to the 
Christian Herald , New York, for the articles writ- 


PREFACE. 


9 


ten by the missionaries, “The Truth about the 
Massacres ’ ’ and ‘ * How the Kharne Martyrs Died. ’ ’ 
He is indebted also to The Outlook , New York, 
for its courtesy in permitting the use of its valu¬ 
able article “ Who is Responsible? ” 

The author is grateful also to the American 
Tract Society, which has once more facilitated the 
publication of the book. 


K. H. BASMAJIAN. 


ILL USTRA TIONS. 




K. H. Basmajian. frontispiece 

Armenian Church Choir-Boys. opp. page 26 

Armenian Celebrities. 48 - 

Missionaries and Native Pastors. Some of the latter 

were undoubtedly victims of the recent massacres... 62 

Adana seen after the Massacre.. 80 

Ex-Sultan Abdul Hamid. The Sultan driving from his 

Palace to the Mosque for Prayer. 90 

Bulgarian Girls. 106 

Victims of the Recent Massacre. 122 


a. Rev. Mr. Rogers, the American Martyr Missionary. 

b. Rev. D. Kondakjian, native pastor of Kessab. 

c. Hon. D. Oorfalian, the first Christian Martyr of 
Adana. 

Constantinople, where the battle was fought April 13. 

1909,between the Young Turksand the Reactionarists, 142 

The Oriental Automobile. 166 

Oriental Greek Funeral Procession.202 ✓ 

Turkish Beauties. 216 

Shefket Pasha, the Military Dictator of Constantinople, 

and his Lieutenants. 232 

The Turkish Governor who permitted the Massacre at 

Adana, and the Orphans made by the Massacre. 252 

Turkish Statesmen. 266 

1. Midhat Pasha, the author of the Constitution. 

2. Riza Bey, first President of the Chamber of 

Deputies. 

3. Hakki Bey, the Turkish Ambassador to Wash¬ 

ington. 

4. Hon. Gabriel Noradoongian, Minister of Public 

Works, the only Armenian in the Cabinet. 

5. Said Pasha, a moderate Young Turk. 

The present Sultan and Dolma Baghtch6 Palace 


272 

















CONTENTS. 


- »<>« - - 

I. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

Childhood and Education. Conversion and Persecution. A 
Turkish Hymn. At the Mission-School, Broosa. Mar¬ 
riage. First Preaching at the Dardanelles. Persecution. 
Departure. Second Journey to Marsovan. Khans. At 
Marsovan. Call from Home. Adrianople. Constanti¬ 
nople. Contact with Baptists. Journey to America; On 
the Mediterranean; At Paris; On the Great Atlantic. 
In America. At Crozer Theological Seminary. 15 

II. ARMENIA AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 

Geography of the Country. A Brief Sketch of the History 
of the Nation. Present Political Condition. Character of 
the Nation. Armenian Language; Literature. A Short 
Sketch of the Armenian Church. Armenia Visited by 
the Gospel. St. Gregory Illuminator. The Bible in the 
Armenian Language. Doctrines and Usages of the Arme¬ 
nian Church. The Armenian Church Needs Reforma¬ 
tion . 36 

III. PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES AMONG THE ARMENIANS, ETC. 

The First Step of the Reformation Taken by a Priest. The 
British and Russian Bible Societies. American Board. 
The Missionaries Begin to Preach. Opposition to the 
Missionaries. Persecution Against their Followers. A 
Heroic Priest. Recantation issued by the Patriarch at 
Constantinople. Anathema against the Protestants. The 
Effect of the Anathema. The First Evangelical Arme¬ 
nian Church at the Capital. Evangelical Brethren Recog¬ 
nized as a Separate Community by the Decree of the 






12 


CONTENTS. 


Sultan. Sketch of the Protestant Organization. The 
Imperial Firman. Missionary Statistics. Missions in 
the Levant. History and the Trials of Missions. 53 

IV. TURKEY. 

The Geography and Climate of the Country. A Brief Sketch 
of Ottoman History. Mohammedanism a Uniting Power. 
The First Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Genealogy of 
Ottoman Sultans. Obstacles. 73 

V. THE GOVERNMENT. 

The Ministers of the Sublime Porte. The Imperial Court. 
The Idea of Citizenship is Foreign to the People. Supe¬ 
riority of the Mohammedans. Population. Rivalry 
between the Nationalities. Moslems. Greeks. Bulga¬ 
rians. The Jews. The Military System. Naval System. 
Finance. The Resources of the Empire. Railroads. 
Telegraph System. Postal System. Passport System. 
Prisons. Newspapers. Reform in the Government.. 83 

VI. MOHAMMEDANISM. 

The Founder of Mohammedanism. The Knowledge of the 
True God Existed in Arabia before the Mohammedan 
Era. The Influence of Christianity at this Time. The 
Great Commission of Mohammed. Mohammed Acts the 
Part of a Prophet. His Flight from Mecca. The Doc¬ 
trines of Mohammedanism. Practical Duties. A Prayer. 
Mosques. The Mohammedan World. The Koran. Mo¬ 
hammedans’ Belief in the Christian Bible. 117 

VII. CONSTANTINOPLE. 

Foundation of the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople the First 
Christian Capital. A Mohammedan Capital. Situation of 
Constantinople. Natural Beauty. St. Sophia. A Cosmo- 





CONTENTS. 


13 


politan City. The Sultan’s Public Prayer. The Bazaar. 
Fire. Dogs. Streets. Porters. Dervishes. Howling 
Dervishes. Turkish Baths. 132 

VIII. SOCIAL LIFE. 

Engagement and Marriage among the Mohammedans. 
Polygamy. Armenian Engagements and Weddings. The 
Bride at her New Home. The Custom of Dowry. Bridal 
Slaves. Fasts and Festivals. Dresses and Ornaments. 
Houses. Haremlik and Selamlik. Parlor. House-clean¬ 
ing. How the Houses are Heated. Eating. Visiting. 
Hospitality. Education. The Ceremony of a Turkish 
Boy’s Reception at School. A Turkish Lady at the Feet 
of a Kiatib. Vintage and Wine-Press. Saloons_ 151 

IX. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 

Contrarieties; Taking off the Shoes. Proverbs. Salutation. 
The Manner of Advertising. Superstitions; Baptizing of 
the Cross. Business Life; Bargains. Women Grinding 
at a Mill. The Birth of a Child and its Baptism. Names. 
Medicine. How the Village People Treat the Sick. 
Funerals. Cemeteries. Pilgrimage. Monasteries... 185 

X. AMUSEMENTS. 

Story-Tellers. Oriental Stories. Hunting. Sleighing. Kite¬ 
flying. Djireed. Music. Dancing. Horse-racing. Sing¬ 
ing. Boat-racing. Wrestling. Karagoz. Card-playing, 
etc. Goose-fighting, etc. 212 


XI. PRESENT STATE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 

I. Original Advantages of the Eastern Church. The Influ¬ 
ence of the Greek Language. The Eastern Church the 
Parent of Theology. Her Influence upon Reformation. 
The Immortal Names of the Eastern Church. 




14 CONTENTS. 

II. Results which Flow from the Separation: i. Hastened the 
Fall of the Eastern Christian Empire. Constantinople 
Taken and Pillaged by the Western Church. 2. The 
Religious Character of the Eastern Church peculiar to 
itself. Description of the Greek Church. Of the Arme¬ 
nian Church. The Manner of Preaching by the Aremnian 
Bishop. Extracts from a Sermon of a Bishop. The 
Abyssinian Church. The Nestorian Church. Maronite, 
Jacobite, and Coptic Churches. 3. Her Theology and 
Christian Literature Greatly Influenced. Unable to 
Defend Christianity. “Method/’ the First Infidel Book 
Published in the Armenian Language. 4. The Eastern 
Churches Cease to be a Missionary Body. The Last Com¬ 
mission of Christ is Observed Literally. 

III. Rival Denominations of the Eastern Church. Present 
Relation. Rivalry among the Denominations. Future 
Relation. Triumphant Song of the United Church... 221 

XII. THE CRESCENT AGAINST THE CROSS. 

The Truth about the Massacres. Described by Dr. Trow¬ 
bridge, the Missionary, and other Eye-witnesses. The 
List of the Native Pastors and Delegates who Lost their 
Lives. The Martyrs of Kharne. “Who is Responsible?” 
Punishment the Only Safeguard. 248 


XIII. THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA. 

Many Social and Historical Changes. The Young Turkey 
Party. A Glance Backward. Midhat Pasha and the 
Constitution. Opposition. Opening of the Parliament. 
Plot to Re-establish the Old Regime. Revolution in the 
Capital. Gen. Shefket Pasha. Despotism and Abdul 
Hamid. Sultan Mohammed the Fifth. The Paramount 
Question. The New Sultan. His Democratic Ways. The 
Outlook. 266 




LIFE IN THE ORIENT, 


i. 

A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 

“ I am a debtor both to the Greeks and the Barbarians, both to 
the wise and to the unwise.” PAUL. 

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 

1 was born during the month of June, 1853 , in 
Adrianople, European Turkey, and received my 
childhood training in that city. When I was six 
years old my parents put me in the National 
School. We had no summer vacation, so every 
afternoon I was obliged, with other pupils of the 
school, to sleep a few hours on the floor, according 
to the custom of that time. The teacher, stick in 
hand, used to walk around us and oblige us to go 
to sleep. I was fourteen years of age when I left 
the school. 

I learned in the school writing and the Arme¬ 
nian language and the four rules of arithmetic. 
Being the youngest of my father’s sons, he was 
very anxious to give me a better education. He 



16 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


therefore put me under a Turkish Hoja (teacher) 
to teach me the Turkish language, both to read 
and to write it. I was about sixteen years of 
age when my father put me under a shoemaker. 
After a few years, my health being broken, I was 
obliged to change my business, and began to sell 
earthen crockery. 

CONVERSION AND PERSECUTION. 

I was about eighteen years of age when, for 
the first time, I went to hear a sermon from the 
Protestant preacher in the city. There was only 
one Armenian Protestant church. The pastor was 
absent. The pulpit was supplied by Mr. Rosen¬ 
berg, the missionary to the Jews. I was very 
much delighted with the sermon of the mission¬ 
ary. The prayers and the singing made a deep 
impression upon me, and I left the church having 
enjoyed the service very much. I continued to 
go every Sunday to the Protestant church after 
the service of the Armenian church. My father 
was a pious man, but very fanatical in religious 
matters. He called me one day and said to me, 

“ My son, I am told that you are going to the 
Protestant church. Is it so ?” 

“Yes, father,” I said, “but I am not going to 
be a Protestant. I wish to be a good Christian 
young man.” 

“No,” says he, “I was bom in the bosom of 
the Armenian church, I have lived about seventy 
years in her bosom, and I will die in her lap. I 
am not able to tolerate two religions in my house; 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. \J 

if yon go to the Protestant church do not come 
home any more.” 

After a few days father brought an Armenian 
priest to the house to persuade me not to go to 
the Protestant church. During our conversation 
with the priest my simple questions excited him, 
and he said to my father emphatically, 

“ Mr. Hagop Basmajian, your son is in a dan¬ 
gerous way. He is a Protestant, and his feet are 
accursed, so that where he treads the grass cannot 
spring up. If you allow him to stay with you, 
your home and business life will be destroyed.” 

I could not imagine at first the purport of his 
words. When I returned home next evening I 
saw my aged mother and the wife of my oldest 
brother in great trouble; their eyes were filled 
with tears. I asked, “ What is the matter with 
you ?” 

Mother said, in a tone which I shall never for¬ 
get in my life, “ Because you are a Protestant your 
father is not able to bear your presence at home, 
therefore you must leave home immediately.” 

What pen can describe the grief mother’s 
words caused me? To leave the paternal roof 
was a great sacrifice at my age. I had many rela¬ 
tions and friends in the city, but who could accept 
a young man that was an outcast from his father ? 
The harsh treatment of my father was more than 
I could bear. The tears filled my eyes and came 
faster than I could wipe them away. Though I 
was overwhelmed by indescribable sorrow, the 
mercy of the Lord was with me. He helped me 

2 


Life in the Orient. 


1 8 LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 

in that moment. I took the trembling hand of 
my mother and wet it with my tears and kissed 
it, and spoke to her thus: “Oh! mother, dear 
mother, do not weep for your son. The Lord, 
whom I love, will protect me in all my present 
and future troubles in the world. I am his and 
he is mine. I am perfectly willing and ready to 
sacrifice everything for him who has sacrificed 
himself for me. Oh ! mother, dear mother, good- 
by, good-by; God be with you and me.” 

I left home. The tears which were flowing 
down my young cheeks were mingled with the 
tears of heavenly gratitude and rejoicing. Blessed 
be the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who enabled 
me to resist all the temptations and tribulations 
that followed this step! Persecution inspired my 
zeal and increased my faith. I was as firm as a 
rock upon the “ Rock of Ages.” 

When I left home I knew not where I should 
go. I was on the market street when I met 
brother Haji Hagop Borekjian; he perceived my 
condition and asked me where I was going. I 
told him my story, and that I had no place to 
rest my head that night. He very kindly invited 
me to his house, and with many encouraging 
words and prayers wiped my tears away. 

The following is the translation of a Turkish 
hymn which I often used to sing in those days: 

I cannot see the way to go, 

It is dark and hid from me. 

Is it a plain and easy path 
Or rough and mountainous too ? 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


*9 


But is it not enough for me 
That my Lord and Saviour knows? 

What kind of water shall it be? 

Is it bitter as Mara ? 

I will joyfully drink it, Lord, 

Because it is given by thee. 

For is it not enough for me 
That my Lord and Saviour knows? 

I know not, my Lord. What of that ? 

It is all well known to thee, 

For from the bosom of thy love 
Flow thy many gifts to me. 

And is it not enough for me 
That my Lord and Saviour knows? 

My father was a good man, and I retained a 
supreme regard for him in all his persecutions 
against me. He was thoroughly under the influ¬ 
ence of the priest, whom he regarded as a messen¬ 
ger of God. The conduct of my father towards 
me was in perfect harmony with his conscience. 

My uncle was an enlightened gentleman; after 
a few weeks he persuaded my father to let me re¬ 
turn home. Father, consenting to his persuasions 
and the paternal love conquering his fanaticism, 
invited me home, and his treatment towards me 
was very kind indeed to his dying hour. He died 
in the month of August, 1873. 

After my connection with the Congregational 
church I expressed my desire to become a min¬ 
ister of the gospel. The church accepted my re¬ 
quest, and proposed to the missionaries of the 
American Board that they accept me in their 
school. 


20 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


AT THE MISSION SCHOOL, BROOSA. 

At the close of 1873 I went to Broosa, to the 
preparatory school, and after eleven months I re¬ 
turned home. Broosa is about sixty miles south 
from Constantinople, situated at the foot of Mt. 
Olympus, which rises over 7,000 feet towards the 
heavens. The summit of the mountain is cov¬ 
ered with snow during the whole year, and from 
it the people bring snow in the summer-time on 
the backs of donkeys and horses, to use for ice¬ 
cream and sherbets. The city having been the 
first capital of the Empire, and having the tombs 
built by the first sultans and other curiosities, 
many distinguished persons who visit Constan¬ 
tinople go to spend a few hours or days in this 
historic city. 

Broosa, after Constantinople, is one of the 
largest, most beautiful, and cleanest cities of Tur¬ 
key. Many of the streets are paved, with narrow 
sidewalks. The mineral waters, cold and hot, 
only a few miles distant from the city, are excel¬ 
lent, and to them many people from every part 
of the country resort for the restoration of their 
health. The population of the city is about 
100,000. There are many mosques, and also 
Greek and Armenian churches. The Protestants 
have a church and an orphanage. Broosa is famed 
for its many silk manufactures and towels. 

After eleven months at Broosa I visited home. 
It was at the close of 1874 when I crossed the 
Black Sea and went to Marsovan in Asiatic 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


21 


Turkey, to take a course in theology in the sem¬ 
inary under the control of the missionaries of the 
same Board. The seminary course was four years, 
divided into two departments, scientific and theo¬ 
logical. In 1876 I finished my course in the scien¬ 
tific department. The faculty, for reasons best 
known to themselves, closed the theological de¬ 
partment for a period of two years. I received an 
appointment as teacher in the scientific depart¬ 
ment, and remained there for eight months. At 
the close of the term I returned home and was 
married to Miss Antaram Bedros Voortootian, in 
Rodosto, a city in European Turkey, March 3, 
1879. Mrs. Basmajian is a graduate of the girls’ 
seminary in Marsovan. 

FIRST PREACHING AT THE DARDANELLES. 

After our marriage we went to the Dardanelles, 
and I spent more than a year in preaching the 
gospel there. The Dardanelles has a population 
of about 10,000. It has a very important situation. 
It is the ancient Hellespont, the arm of the sea 
which divides Europe from Asia. It was across 
the Hellespont that Xerxes laid his bridge of 
boats for the passage of his million soldiers; and 
from the heights on this shore he looked down 
upon them and wept to think that in a hundred 
years none of that great army would be living. 
The strait in some places is less than a half-mile 
wide and the defences are very strong, the forts 
being mounted with heavy Krupp guns. 

We found certain Protestant Armenians in the 


22 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


Dardanelles, who used to come together to wor¬ 
ship in their own houses. The Evangelical Ar¬ 
menian Church at Rodosto used to send some of 
the brethren to preach here from time to time. 
Before our arrival at the Dardanelles the brethren 
had rented a house for us, and we set apart one 
large room for religious services. The Lord 
blessed our work, and many people came from 
week to week to hear the preaching of the gospel. 
It was very interesting to see also among the peo¬ 
ple Mohammedans and Mohammedan ladies veiled 
in their white laces. 

PERSECUTION. 

Our success in the work excited the jealousy of 
some of our fanatical neighbors, and they gave us 
very much trouble. They mocked at our prayer- 
meetings because they lacked ostentation and 
ceremony, and threatened to do us harm if we did 
not leave the house. One evening while I was 
reading the Scriptures in a prayer-meeting, a heavy 
stone broke the window and fell at my feet; it 
hurt no one. For a couple of months our fanatical 
neighbors continued stoning us, so that we were 
obliged, for our own protection, to close the shut¬ 
ters of all our windows after sunset every day. 

On St. Gregory’s day a mob gathered in front 
of the house to shed the blood of Protestants if we 
did not leave. Fortunately I was informed early, 
and put Mrs. Basmajian in the house of a brother, 
and went to tell the story to Mr. Melling, our 
esteemed friend, consul of Great Britain in the 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


23 


Dardanelles. Mr. Melling sent word to the chief 
of the soldiers and secured his promise for our 
protection that night. A certain number of the 
brethren came to stay with me at my home. 

About six o’clock p. m. our house was sur¬ 
rounded by a great mob. The shouting of the 
men, the yelling of the women, the screaming of 
the children, and the falling of innumerable stones 
upon our house, filled our hearts with fear beyond 
description. 

The soldiers did not come in time and we were 
thoroughly unprotected before the violent mob. I 
said to the brethren, “Let us pray for divine pro¬ 
tection.” We all knelt down and prayed to God 
to keep us from harm, and give mercy to our per¬ 
secutors and soften their hearts. After our earn¬ 
est prayers, we heard the tread of the soldiers. 
The mob dispersed. Thanks be unto the Lord, 
we were saved! 

Mr. Melling defended our cause before the Gov¬ 
ernment. The kindness and hospitality shown by 
him and his family to me and Mrs. Basmajian dur¬ 
ing this trouble shall never be forgotten. 

We remained at the Dardanelles about fourteen 
months, and then I prepared to go to Marsovan to 
finish my theological course. My ministry, by 
the blessing of God, was very useful, not only to 
the brethren, but to all communities of the city, 
who learned That, though the Protestants were 
very few in number, they had the privilege like 
them to worship the Lord according to the dic¬ 
tates of their conscience. After our departure to 


24 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


Marsovan the brethren organized a church under 
the auspices of the church at Rodosto. At the 
present time the brethren have a small chapel for 
their worship and a school for their children. 

DEPARTURE. 

The brethren were very sorry at our departure; 
they prayed for our journey and our success in the 
seminary, and many of them in small boats escort¬ 
ed us to the steamship anchored in the harbor. 
We kissed them with the holy kiss and commend¬ 
ed them unto the care of the Good Shepherd and 
departed in tears. The steamer began to glide 
over the smooth water and up the winding strait 
of the Dardanelles, when we cast our eyes once 
more upon the city, remembering all the mercies 
and blessings of our Lord Jesus Christ upon our 
work, and waving our white handkerchiefs to the 
noble family of Mr. Melling and to the brethren 
until the city disappeared from our sight. We 
were on the Sea of Marmora. After twelve hours’ 
travel we arrived at the capital, Constantinople, 
and visited our friends and prepared ourselves for 
a long and tiresome journey to Marsovan. 

SECOND JOURNEY TO MARSOVAN. 

It was at the close of February, 1880, when we 
started from Constantinople to Samsoon; we had 
to cross the Black Sea a second time. After two 
days we were at Samsoon, an important city on 
the Black Sea. From Samsoon to Marsovan is 
about 50 miles. It was not possible to start at 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


25 


once. We had to wait for the caravan. In Amer¬ 
ica to take a journey is a pleasure, while in Tur¬ 
key it is anything but a pleasure. There was no 
railroad from Sam soon to Marsovan. Instead of 
railroads there are strong-headed horses, stubborn 
mules, patient donkeys, and slow camels. We 
were obliged to stay at Samsoon about ten days. 
Mr. and Mrs. Leonard, our former friends, mission¬ 
aries of the American Board at Marsovan, were in 
Samsoon during the winter. They were preparing 
to return to America. There being no comforta¬ 
ble lodgings in the city, our condition would have 
been very miserable if they had not cordially invi¬ 
ted us to their home to spend those ten days with 
them. The kindness and hospitality of Mr. and 
Mrs. Leonard will long be remembered. 

On the tenth day we left the comfortable home 
of our friends and took our places upon the backs 
of the mules. The ground beneath us was cov¬ 
ered with snow as well as the summits of the 
mountains through which we had to pass. 

There were with us two seminary students 
and other passengers, and about a hundred cam¬ 
els, horses, mules, and donkeys, loaded with rice, 
salt, wheat, and merchandise. 

It took seven days for us to travel the fifty 
miles to Marsovan. I do not know how many 
times we were thrown from the stubborn mules; 
fortunately we were not seriously hurt. 

Our provisions being exhausted on the sixth 
day of our journey, we entered the city on the 
seventh day extremely fatigued and hungry. 


26 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


KHANS. 

In Constantinople, Adrianople, Smyrna, and 
other great cities in Turkey there are comfortable 
hotels for travellers, but in small cities and towns 
hotels are seldom found. From Samsoon to Mar- 
sovan there are several khans, where all travellers, 
civilized or uncivilized, are obliged to spend the 
night. These khans are very miserable, filthy, 
gloomy, and extremely smoky. There is no sep¬ 
arate apartment for women. When the missiona¬ 
ries travel they divide the space into as many 
rooms as they need by hanging curtains. 

Where we spent one night there were a num¬ 
ber of mules and donkeys. In the winter-time the 
misery of the khans is beyond description. There 
is paper instead of glass in the windows. During 
the nights you will find the travellers sleeping, 
smoking, drinking coffee, singing, crying, quarrel¬ 
ling, and cursing each other. Every man does as 
he pleases, without taking into consideration the 
condition of his fellow-travellers. 

AT MARSOVAN. 

How glad and happy we were when we reached 
Marsovan and saw the faces of our friends! We 
thanked God who had protected us in all our dan¬ 
gerous travelling. 

We remained at Marsovan two years and three 
months. During this time we were very happy 
indeed. Our joy was increased when the Lord 
gave us a beautiful son (James) on the third of 



ARMENIAN CHURCH CHOIR-BOYS. 














. 
















* 










' 





























AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


27 


March, 1882. But his life was very short on earth. 
He lived only about eight months, and died Sep¬ 
tember 17, 1882. Our sorrow was extreme. The 
missionaries and their wives and the lady teachers 
of the mission school and all the students of the 
seminary showed us great sympathy and tried to 
comfort our saddened hearts. But the best com¬ 
fort came to our souls from above. We had the 
same assurance which David had, and could say, 
“We shall go to him, but he shall not return to 
us.’’ I was graduated May 5, 1882. 

The Evangelical Armenian church in Marso- 
van extended to me an invitation to become their 
pastor. At the same time a telegram was received 
from the missionaries in Constantinople calling 
me back to that city. Accordingly I declined the 
invitation of the church. 

Marsovan is one of the most important mis¬ 
sionary stations, having several missionaries con¬ 
nected with the schools. Anatolia College is a 
new institution, where many Armenian and Greek 
young men get their education. The population 
of the city is about 15,000, mostly Mohammedan. 
Armenians have there a church and school. Prot¬ 
estant Armenians will have in the near future the 
largest church building among the Protestants. 
Rev. Mr. Filian, the present pastor, is a graduate 
of Chicago Theological Seminary; a very accom¬ 
plished gentleman. He visited the United States 
about two years ago to raise a fund for the erec¬ 
tion of a new and larger church for the accommo¬ 
dation of his growing congregation. The Lord 


28 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


blessed his efforts and he raised $10,000 for the 
purpose. The Protestant community have their 
own private schools for the education of children 
of both sexes. 

Altogether I spent about six years in Marso- 
van. It was in Marsovan that the blossom of my 
life flourished. There I received my early train¬ 
ing for the ministry at the feet of American and 
Armenian Gamaliels. It was there that we en¬ 
joyed the sympathy and respect of the Evangeli¬ 
cal Church. It was there that I began to study the 
English language, which has helped me greatly in 
America. My heart is full of gratitude and respect 
towards the Faculty of the Marsovan Seminary. 
My prayer to God is that he will bless the sem¬ 
inary and all the efforts of the missionaries for 
the glory of our Saviour. 

FAREWELL TO MARSOVAN. 

At last the hour came for our departure to 
Constantinople. It was a fine day in March, 1883. 
We had with us Dr. Herrick, a professor of the 
seminary, and several students who were going to 
Constantinople. According to the custom, many 
people—missionaries, the girls from the seminary, 
and brethren and sisters from the city—escorted 
us out of the city. The farewell was very impres¬ 
sive. I saw tears in the eyes of many brethren. 
After a short but memorable prayer under a large 
tree we began to shake the hands of the brethren, 
then mounted our mules, cast a farewell glance at 
the faces of our friends, and departed. The weath- 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


29 


er being fine, we arrived at Samsoon in three days 
and embarked on the Austrian steamer, and after 
two days we saw the charming shores of the Bos¬ 
phorus. 

CALL FROM HOME. 

We were at Constantinople when I accepted a 
call from Adrianople. The church was very glad 
at our return and welcomed us cordially. I en¬ 
tered upon my work and God blessed my labors 
abundantly. Every Sunday we had a full house, 
many of them being strangers. During my min¬ 
istry all the brethren were very kind to me and 
helped me very much. My right hand man was 
the deacon of the church, Mr. Hachadoor Kooroo- 
yan, whose love and sympathy to me and my fam¬ 
ily were very strong. 

After a year and a half of successful ministry in 
Adrianople I received a letter of invitation from 
the missionaries to go to Constantinople and take 
the charge of translating the missionary paper, 
Avedaper (Messenger). At first I declined to go, 
but finally I accepted the invitation. The breth¬ 
ren, seeing that I might do, perhaps, a much 
greater work in assisting in the publication of the 
paper, reluctantly accepted my resignation. It 
was during my ministry at Adrianople that God 
gave us a daughter, Mary, June 1, 1883. Before 
leaving Adrianople I wish to tell something 
about it. 

ADRIANOPLE. 

Adrianople is situated in a very fertile plain, at 
the confluence of three rivers, Maritza, Arda, and 


30 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


Tounja. The city was the capital of the Ottoman 
Empire before the capture of Constantinople 
(1361-1453 A. D.). 

The population is estimated to be about 100,- 
000, composed of Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Bul¬ 
garians, and Jews. There are also many European 
people. All the European Powers have their con¬ 
suls or representatives in the city. Adrianople is 
also the seat of the Greek archbishop and of Ar¬ 
menian and Bulgarian bishops. The city has 
very fine environments. Considering its beautiful 
site, its fertile neighborhood, its rivers, and its 
connection with Constantinople and Europe by 
railroads, its trade is very insignificant. The let¬ 
ters written to me by my friends describe the 
trade of the city as being deplorable. 

The city is surrounded by excellent vineyards. 
The wine is famous, and the best grapes of every 
kind are found in the city. For twenty-five cents 
you can buy fifteen pounds of fine white grapes, 
equal to those raised in California. Vegetables 
and fruits of every kind are cheap and accessible 
to every class of people. There are some silk, 
wool, and cotton manufactories. The cheese of 
Adrianople is well known and is the best in all 
the Turkish Empire. 

Adrianople was built by the Romans and called 
“The city of Adrian”—Adrianopolis. It is 130 
miles northwest of Constantinople. The most 
prominent structures are the baths, the bazaar, the 
mosques, the old seraglio, the military academy, 
the barracks, about a mile and a half from the 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


31 


city, and tlie stone bridges over the rivers. Some 
of the mosques are older than the mosques at Con¬ 
stantinople. The mosque of Sultan Selim is the 
pride of Adrianople. The dome of the mosque is 
higher than the dome of St. Sophia at Constanti¬ 
nople, and is guarded by four lofty and elegant 
minarets. The mosque is adorned by a portico 
with ancient columns of rare marble from the old 
Roman temples. There are about fifty mosques, 
two Armenian, fifteen Greek, four Bulgarian (or¬ 
thodox), and one Catholic Bulgarian churches, and 
thirteen Jewish synagogues. 

Adrianople, in many respects, is second only to 
Constantinople. Some very important treaties 
after the war between Turkey and Russia were 
signed here. 


AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 

I entered upon my new career in the beginning 
of 1884 as assistant editor to the Rev. H. S. Bar- 
num, meanwhile preaching on the Sabbath in the 
suburbs of Constantinople. The work was new to 
me. At first I had some difficulty, but my inter¬ 
est in the work was so great that I conquered it. 
The paper was considerably enlarged and its sub¬ 
scribers were increased. I am almost at a loss to 
say how greatly I was benefited by the work. I 
had the opportunity of seeing many valuable reli¬ 
gious and scientific papers published in America. 
Living at Constantinople, I came in contact also 
with the environments of the city, which inter¬ 
ested me very highly. 


3* 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


My office was at the Bible House in Constants 
nople proper, while my home was on the heights 
of Scutari. The situation of our home was mag¬ 
nificent. The gorgeous palaces of the Sultans, the 
charming sweeps of the Bosphorus, the hills of the 
city, embroidered with mosques and heaven-pier¬ 
cing minarets, and the crystal waters of the Mar¬ 
mora were in sight. It was on this charming hill 
of Scutari that the Lord gave us a son (Edward), 
September 17, 1885. 

CONTACT WITH BAPTISTS. 

While I was pursuing my work I came in con¬ 
tact with Baptists and joined their church. The 
Congregational missionaries expressed their sor¬ 
row to me at the change in my views, which in¬ 
volved a change in my relations to them. But I 
continued my work nearly six months, until they 
found another brother to put in my place. 

JOURNEY TO AMERICA. 

Having a desire to get a higher theological 
training and to see the United States, I made up 
my mind to come and bring my little family, 
so that they might also share the benefit of the 
New World. I sold my furniture and so collected 
money for our journey. It was on the 6th of Sep¬ 
tember, 1886, when, with my family, I embarked 
in a French steamer bound for Marseilles. 

What mortal pen can describe the feelings 
which overwhelmed me like the mighty surges of 
the sea when the steamer began to depart grace- 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


33 


fully from the harbor! It was a departure from 
home, from beloved parents, and from many dear 
brethren, friends and relatives. It was departure 
from the Old World to the New, new life, new at¬ 
mosphere and environments. The thought which 
occupied my mind for a few moments was wheth¬ 
er we should ever again see the shores of the Old 
World which we were now leaving. I cast my 
eyes on the city, which never before seemed so 
charming and attractive. There on my right was 
the Bible House, and on the left our house. Amid 
these thoughts the beautiful scenery disappeared 
as the evening dropped her curtain over us. 

ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. 

We were on the Sea of Marmora. Next morn¬ 
ing the steamer cast her anchor before the Dar¬ 
danelles. It was a good opportunity to see the 
brethren and bid them good-by. Oh ! how sweet 
and how precious was the hour which we spent 
with them. Several of them came out to the 
steamer to see Mrs. Basmajian and our little chil¬ 
dren. They did not come empty-handed. Some 
of them brought crockery of the city, which is the 
best in Turkey, and others brought apples and 
grapes. After a stop of about two hours the 
steamer weighed her anchor and we sailed into 
the waters of the Mediterranean. The sea was 
very smooth, and we had a very pleasant time for 
five successive days. Having a full moon, we used 
to spend several hours of the night on the deck, 
instead of remaining in our state-rooms, enjoying 

life in the Orient. “2 


34 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


the beautiful scenery. The steamer, under the 
canopy of the fair moon and brilliant stars, glided 
majestically along, and our hearts were filled with 
praise and gratitude to the Creator. 

AT PARIS. 

On the 12th of September we arrived at Mar¬ 
seilles. The steamship of the Transatlantic Com¬ 
pany was to sail from Havre to New York Septem¬ 
ber 18, 1886. We had opportunity, therefore, to 
spend a few days in Marseilles and Paris. Mar¬ 
seilles is a great manufacturing city. The commo¬ 
dious harbor especially attracted our attention. 
We visited the splendid Zoological Garden and 
other places in the city. After two days we started 
for Paris. The magnificent buildings, the grand 
domes of the cathedrals, the regular and clean 
streets, the crowded market-places, the natural 
politeness of the inhabitants, finally the beauty 
and excellency of the city, left an impression upon 
our minds which we shall never forget. 

ON THE GREAT ATLANTIC. 

After a day and a half at Paris we left for 
Havre on Friday. Next day, Saturday, we took 
the French steamer “ La Gascogne,” and after an 
eight days’ trip we arrived at New York. Being 
for the first time on the great Atlantic, its great 
and high waves frightened us and made us very 
sick; but after a few days our voyage was very 
pleasant. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


35 


IN AMERICA. 

AT CROZER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 

We left New York next day for Philadelphia, 
Pa. The following day we came to Chester, Pa., 
and I went to see Dr. Weston, the President of 
Crozer Theological Seminary, to whom I had a 
letter of recommendation. Next day Mrs. Dr. 
Weston, accompanied by Mrs. Dr. Johnson, came 
to the hotel in a carriage, and took us to our new 
home, in Upland. Mrs. Dr. Weston kindly fur¬ 
nished our home with necessary furniture, which 
we have used during our stay at the seminary. 

I remained about three years at the seminary, 
and was treated with respect by the Faculty and 
my seminary brethren. May the Lord bless the 
Crozer Theological Seminary ! I graduated June 
12, 1889; and was ordained in Philadelphia, De¬ 
cember 14, 1890. 


36 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


II. 

ARMENIA AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH i 

“ Their nationality and their church can hardly fail to take an 
important part in determining the future of the East.”— Tozer. 

GEOGRAPHY OF THE COUNTRY. 

Armenia lies just south of the Caucasian 
Mountains, and between the Black and Caspian 
Seas. The more exact boundaries of the country 
are: on the north, the Caucasian Mountains and 
the Georgian Provinces; on the east, the Cas¬ 
pian Sea and Persia; on the south, Assyria and 
Mesopotamia; on the west, Asia Minor. The 
whole territory is a little larger than the State of 
Pennsylvania. 

The location of Eden, the home of our first 
parents, is a question among geographers. Arme¬ 
nians claim that Eden was in Armenia, and I do 
not think that there are reasonable objections to 
their claim. 

The general character of Armenia is moun¬ 
tainous; it is about 6,000 feet above the level of 
the sea. Here is the magnificent Ararat, (14,000 
feet high) which was witness of one of the most 
remarkable events in the history of the world. 
The ark of Noah rested upon the dome of Ararat, 
which is the sentinel of Armenia. The eminent 
traveller Morier says: “ Nothing can be more 


ARMENIA AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 37 

beautiful than the shape, more awful than the 
height of Ararat. All surrounding mountains sink 
into insignificance when compared to it. It is 
perfect in all its parts, everything is in harmony, 
and renders it one of the sublimest objects in na¬ 
ture. From here descend the Acampis to the 
Black Sea, the Araxis to the Caspian Sea, and the 
Tigris and Euphrates to the Persian Gulf.” Ar¬ 
menian people are very boastful indeed that the 
first pages of the Bible cast light upon their na¬ 
tional history. 

Armenia abounds in streams and lakes. The 
country is the home of various kinds of vegetable 
productions, cattle, etc. Its climate is very 
healthy. In a word, nature has done much for 
Armenia. Taking all into consideration, I may 
well ask, Could any country have been more ap¬ 
propriately selected as the garden of our first 
parents and the cradle of humanity ? 

A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE NATION. 

The history of the nation is somewhat obscure. 
It is claimed that the Armenian nation sprang 
from Togarmah, the great-grandson of Japheth, 
the son of Noah. The nation has two respective 
names, Haik, after the first ruler, and Armenia. 
The first is used in speaking of themselves, and 
the second is applied by other nationalities. The 
name Armenian is derived from Aram, one of the 
wise and mighty kings of the nation. 

There have been four dynasties in the Arme¬ 
nian kingdom. 


38 


LirE IN THE ORIENT, 


The First Dynasty began 2350 B. C. and ex¬ 
tended to the time of Alexander the Great, 330 
B. C. The country was subjugated by Alexander 
the Great, and was ruled over by Macedonian and 
Sefleucean rulers till 180 B. C. 

The Second Dynasty began 150 B. C. and con¬ 
tinued till 452 A. D. After the overthrow of 
this dynasty the country was controlled for 442 
years by Persian, Armenian, and Arabian govern¬ 
ors and commissaries. 

The Third Dynasty began 885 A. D. and lasted 
till 1045 A. D. After the destruction of this dy¬ 
nasty the country was without any ruler, and was 
subjected to the assaults of Greeks, Persians, and 
Saracens. 

The Fourth Dynasty began 1080 A. D. in Cilicia, 
and continued till 1377 A. D. The last Armenian 
king, Leo VI., died in Paris, 1399 A. D., and his 
queen died at Jerusalem, 1406 A. D. 

Armenia is now only a geographical name 
without bearing any significant meaning. The 
country is divided between Turkey, Persia, and 
Russia. The people are consequently scattered 
throughout these countries. The present number 
of Armenians is about 4,000,000. Of these about 
2,000,000 live in Turkey, more than 1,000,000 live 
in Russia, and about 500,000 in Persia. The rest 
of the people are scattered in Danubian principali¬ 
ties, in India, Europe, and the United States. At 
Constantinople are found a very large number of 
Armenians, there being more than 200,000 in that 
great metropolis. 


ARMENIA AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 39 


PRESENT POLITICAL CONDITION. 

Armenia in her political history presents a 
sad picture to the world. She has felt the fire 
of Persians, the strong arms of Tartars, and the 
arrows of the Medes. By the number, variety, 
and formidable power of the enemies leagued 
against her, her blood has been shed in many cities 
and villages, in many valleys and on many hills of 
Armenia, but under all circumstances she clung 
steadfastly to the strong pillars of Christian 
faith. 

While many mighty contemporary nations 
died, the Armenian nation still lives, if not the 
oldest, one of the oldest nations in the world. 
Does not this fact afford conclusive evidence of 
the special interposition of Providence in the pres¬ 
ervation of the nation ? The Armenian nation is 
strikingly distinct from the other nationalities in 
this respect: that when she was the most power¬ 
ful she did not oppress her neighbors. 

THE TRAGEDY OF THE 19TH CENTURY. 

The last century closed with one of the most bar¬ 
barous massacres that was ever known in the his¬ 
tory of the world. Over 50,000 Armenian Chris¬ 
tians perished by sword, starvation, and privation. 
A tragedy like that cannot be easily forgotten. 
Many homes burned then still are lying in cold 
ashes, many churches desecrated and torn down 
are still buried in ruins, many orphans are still 
crying for their parents, many young women are 


40 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


still in black garments for their betrothed, and 
many widows for their husbands. 

There are nations which became renowned by 
their chivalrous and glorious achievements, but 
poor Armenia ! the world knows thee by thy ca¬ 
lamities and misfortunes ! 

It is natural to ask, “ What was the cause of 
the massacres ? ’ ’ The reader will find in Chapter 
XII of this book the answer in the article “ Who 
is Responsible ? ’ ’ 

The cry of some Armenians for liberty could 
not justify such a tragedy as that, nor would the 
circulation of several thousands of patriotic pam¬ 
phlets be an excuse for such a great human out¬ 
rage, nor would even a secret revolutionary move¬ 
ment, if there was any, precipitate such an appall¬ 
ing massacre as the butchery of thousands of 
innocent men, women, boys, girls, and infants. 

God be our refuge ! 

Every victim’s cry, every widow’s tear is an 
appeal for justice to the Throne of God. 

The Armenian Christians may be allowed to 
have this consolation, that with all their suffer¬ 
ings and martyrdom, they hastened the downfall 
of the Turkish tyranny and opened an era of civil 
and religious liberty. 

Armenia will never forget the kindly hand ex¬ 
tended to her from America in her hour of distress. 
During both massacres the missionaries and their 
wives and the teachers rendered inestimable ser¬ 
vices in caring for the poor, the hungry, and the 
naked. They practically opened their homes for 


ARMENIA AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 41 

the persecuted Christians and their hospitals for 
the wounded. The Christian Herald and many 
other religious and secular journals and the Red 
Cross Society came nobly to its rescue. Churches 
and public halls were thrown open everywhere for 
meetings to manifest practical sympathy for the 
bleeding Armenians. 

CHARACTER OF THE NATION. 

Those who travel in the East, and come in 
contact with the Armenian people, give excellent 
testimonials concerning them. 

The late Rev. Dr. H. G. O. Dwight, one of the 
first and most famous American missionaries in the 
East, says, “In Turkey they (Armenians) have 
shown themselves to be superior to the other races 
around in commercial tact and in mechanical skill. 
The principal merchants are Armenians, and 
nearly all the great bankers of the Government; 
and, whatever arts there are that require peculiar 
ingenuity and skill, they are almost sure to be in 
the hands of Armenians. ... In one word, they 
are the Anglo-Saxons of the East.” 

The eminent author of many volumes, Emile 
De Laveleye, says in “The Balkan Peninsula 

“ The Armenians are intelligent, laborious, 
economical, and excellent business men. They 
occupy official appointments in the administration 
of the Ottoman Empire, and in Constantinople 
they are the chief promoters of economical activ¬ 
ity. Their civilization is among the oldest in 
Asia. Their annals date from the earliest historic 


42 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


times. Their literature is rich and continuous, 
uninterrupted through all the middle ages. It has 
furnished philosophers, historians, theologians, and 
poets.” 

ARMENIAN LANGUAGE. 

The Armenian language is distinguished for 
its antiquity. It belongs to the Indo-Germanic 
family, but has undergone since its origin many 
alterations, as the English and many other lan¬ 
guages have done. 

Ancient Armenian is intelligible only to scholars. 
It is dead. The best and most ancient literature is 
written in this language, and is inaccessible to the 
mass of the people. 

Ararat Armenian is spoken by many Arme¬ 
nians who live between the Black Sea and the 
sources of the Euphrates, in Persia and neighbor¬ 
ing places. 

Modem Armenian is spoken by the Armenians 
who live in Constantinople, in Asia Minor, and in 
other lands. 

The cases in the Armenian language, accord- 
ing to modern authors, are ten in number. 

The declensions of the nouns are ten. 

There is no gender. 

There are four conjugations of the verbs. 

There are a great many irregular nouns and 
verbs. 

There are a number of the words which are 
akin to the English. Some of them I record as a 
curiosity: 


ARMENIA AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 43 


Armenian . 

English. 

Ayer. 

.... Air. 

Toor. 


Toosder. 


Garc. 


Gov. 


Hair. 

.... Hair. 

Mid. 


Poss. 


Poonch . 


Champer .... 


Too. 


Jisht. 



Both in European and Asiatic Turkey there 
are towns and cities where the Armenians do not 
know their own language; they talk in Turkish, 
but use the Armenian alphabet in writing. 

ARMENIAN LITERATURE. 

The early literature of the nation perished, but 
some historical and traditional portions of songs 
have been preserved by Moses of Khoren, the 
father of Armenian history, and republished by 
several modern scholars. Before the fifth century 
the nation had used the Greek alphabet. St. Mes- 
rob invented the Armenian alphabet now in use. 
There are thirty-eight letters, written from left to 
right. The invention gave impetus both to the 
language and literature. The most flourishing 
period of literature extended from the fifth to the 
fourteenth century. The ancient literature con- 














44 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


sists mainly of ecclesiastical, historical, liturgical, 
polemical, and doctrinal writings. 

The Armenian literature as compared to the 
Greek and European is not rich. The reason is 
evident. The richness of the literature of a nation 
is always connected with her national history. 
What the history of the Armenian nation is has 
already been described. Yet if the literature of 
the nation is not equal to that of civilized Euro¬ 
pean nations, it is far superior to that of her sur¬ 
rounding neighbors. 

Armenian literature has made rapid progress 
during the present century, especially by means 
of the Armenian Catholic monks in the Monastery 
of St. Lazarus, Venice. The influence of this 
brotherhood on literature is highly appreciated by 
the whole nation. From their pens the ancient 
classics, books of all sorts, and dictionaries in Eng¬ 
lish, Armenian, Turkish, French, Greek, and Ital¬ 
ian were printed and widely circulated among the 
Armenians in the East and West. From the pens 
of these monks have come forth many valuable 
translations from the English, Greek, French, and 
many European languages. Besides, Armenian 
ancient classics, almost buried in oblivion, were 
again brought to the light of the world by the en¬ 
ergy of the fathers at St. Lazarus. American 
missionaries also have published very valuable 
religious and scientific books in the modern Ar¬ 
menian language, and are adding to the list from 
time to time. 


ARMENIA AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 45 


A SHORT SKETCH OF THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 

The Armenians were originally idolaters. 
There were three distinct periods in which the 
nation followed idol-worship. First, nature wor¬ 
ship ; second, the system of Zoroaster; third, the 
worship of the Greek idols. 

There were two distinct national conversions 
to Christianity. The first of these was under the 
king Abgarus, of Edessa, in Mesopotamia. Ac¬ 
cording to an ancient tradition, which is men¬ 
tioned by Eusebius, the father of church history, 
and sanctioned by some scholars of our time, there 
was a correspondence between our Lord Jesus 
Christ and the Armenian king Abgarus. 

ARMENIA VISITED BY THE GOSPEL. 

Ecclesiastical history of the nation declares 
that Bartholomew and Thaddaeus (the former an 
apostle and the latter one of the seventy) were 
subsequently sent to Armenia; and Thaddaeus, 
after reaching Edessa, began to preach the gospel. 
Abgarus believed in Jesus Christ, and after his 
baptism the royal family, the nobles, the princes, 
and the people of Edessa followed his example. 
Bartholomew and Thaddaeus preached the gospel 
in the other parts of the land, and many Armeni¬ 
ans embraced Christianity. But after the death 
of Abgarus his successors denied the faith and 
raised persecution against Christians. The idol 
temples, which were destroyed by the decree of 
Abgarus, were rebuilt by the royal decrees of his 


4 6 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


successors. Consequently the light of the gospel 
was almost extinguished till the end of the third 
century. This closed the first period of Christian¬ 
ity in Armenia. 

ST. GREGORY ILLUMINATOR. 

The second period began (268 A. D.) when the 
proud king Tiridates, the violent persecutor and 
the hater of the Christian faith, humbled himself 
and bowed before the glorious cross of Jesus Christ 
and embraced Christianity with his whole court, 
through the great apostle of Armenia, St. Gregory, 
the Illuminator, the son of a Parthian prince. 
Therefore the church is called Illuminiterian or 
Gregorian. 

St. Gregory, after preaching many days and 
baptizing the king, queen, and the people in the 
Euphrates, consecrated four hundred bishops and 
an immense number of priests and deacons. St. 
Gregory, by the mighty arm of the king, Tirida¬ 
tes, destroyed the idol temples, and in their place 
erected churches and built convents, schools, and 
hospitals, and diffused the light of Christianity 
throughout Armenia. 

THE BIBLE IN THE ARMENIAN LANGUAGE. 

This is the second period of the conversion of 
the nation to Christianity, which lasted till 454 
A. D. This period, from many points of view, is 
the most important in the history of the Armenian 
Church. This is the golden period of Armenian 
literature. During this time the alphabet was fur- 


ARMENIA AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 47 

nished and the whole Bible was translated (from 
the Septuagint) into the Armenian language, which 
is the oldest and most magnificent national and 
ecclesiastical monument, and it is held in consid¬ 
erable estimation by recent Biblical scholars. It 
was during this period that many learned and 
classical men, inspired by the Christian spirit, left 
us their writings, which we read with great pleas¬ 
ure. Thus “ Moses of Khoren ” left us a history 
of Armenia, “ Eznik ” an able controversial book, 
and “ Eghishe ” the history of the religious war of 
the nation against the Persians. These books are 
translated into some European languages. Be¬ 
sides the church attained during the eighth, and 
again in the twelfth century, a very prominent 
stage of literary eminence both by translating 
the works of the fathers and producing original 
works. Among the living distinguished clergy¬ 
men the names of Khirimian, Lursinian, and Mu- 
radian, bishops, may be mentioned, who by their 
religious and classical works hold a very promi¬ 
nent position. 

DOCTRINES AND USAGES OF THE ARMENIAN 

CHURCH. 

The form of the church is Episcopal. The 
head of the church is the gathoghigos, who resides 
at Echmiadzin, in Georgia, Russia. There are also 
two other gathoghigos, one of whom lives at Agh- 
tamar, on the Lake of Van, and the other at Sis, 
in Cilicia; but these are subordinate to the former. 
Next to the gathoghigos comes the archbishop, 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


48 

and in turn the bishop, the vartabed (teacher or 
preacher), and lastly the priest and deacon. These 
are the important officers of the church. 

The Armenian Church is independent. Neith¬ 
er the Pope of Rome nor the Greek Patriarch of 
Constantinople has any authority over it. There 
are two Patriarchal Sees, one in Constantinople 
and the other in Jerusalem. The Patriarch must 
be a bishop. The Patriarch of Constantinople is 
the representative of the nation before the Sub¬ 
lime Porte, is elected by the nation, and confirmed 
by the Sultan. 

In the year 491 A. D. a synod of Armenian 
bishops rejected the decision of the Council of 
Chalcedon (the fourth general council), and thus 
were cut off from the communion of Christen¬ 
dom. The Armenian Church remained free from 
Arian and other heretical errors prevailing in 
those times, but believes that the human and di¬ 
vine natures of Christ are united without confu¬ 
sion and are inseparable, John 14:10. Therefore 
they are called Monophysites. 

In the twelfth century a disposition was mani¬ 
fested to unite the Armenian Church with the 
Greek Church. Nerses Lambronasses, an eminent 
Armenian clergyman, delivered a magnificent ora¬ 
tion, inviting his people into Christian love and 
peace; but the union did not come into existence. 
The whole Armenian clergy regarded the pro¬ 
posed union as nothing but a threat against the 
independence of the church and its subjection to 
the Greek Church. Whether the Armenian Church 



HhhHI 


ARMENIAN CELEBRITIES 



















I 


ARMENIA AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 49 

made a mistake by not uniting with the Greek 
Church or not is hard to tell. One thing is cer¬ 
tain, that the church, by keeping herself aloof 
from the Greek Church, did not participate in its 
many abuses, and did not claim to be the only 
orthodox church. The Greek Church does not 
accept any member from any other church into 
her membership, whether they are immersed or 
sprinkled, without rebaptizing them. This they 
do simply to tell the Christian world that ortho¬ 
doxy belongs only to the Greek Church and there 
is danger to those who live out of the bosom of the 
only Greek Orthodox Church. 

The Armenian Church is liberal, though she is 
accursed both by the Roman-catholic and the 
Greek orthodox churches; but she admits them to 
communion. The church does not claim to be 
the only orthodox church, and does not deny salva¬ 
tion to others, as does the Roman-catholic Church. 

The Armenian Church discards the doctrine of 
purgatory, and agrees with the Greek Church in 
rejecting the filioque from the Nicene Creed, and 
maintains the procession of the Holy Spirit from 
the Father only. The church holds to baptismal 
regeneration, original sin being washed away by 
baptism; for the removal of actual sins, penance 
and the sacraments of the church are regarded as 
necessary. The church holds to auricular confes¬ 
sion to the priest, and holds also that prayer is 
rendered much more efficacious by being offered 
through the mediation of saints. 

Baptism is performed by threefold immersion. 

4 


Life la tb« Orient. 


50 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


The doctrine of transubstantiation is held as a 
very important one. Unleavened bread is used in 
the sacrament, and the wafers are dipped in undi¬ 
luted wine and are given to men, women, and 
children. The use of the pictures of the saints, 
especially of Mary and of the twelve apostles, is 
lawful; and the pictures of the crucifixion, resur¬ 
rection, and ascension of Christ are shown to the 
people according to the calendar of the church. 

Some portions of the Scripture are read, others 
chanted. The ancient Armenian language is used 
both in reading the Scriptures and in all ceremo¬ 
nies of the church. The priests marry, but after 
the death of their wives they are prohibited remar¬ 
riage. The bishops and all grades of the church 
above the priesthood are forbidden to marry. A 
priest, as long as his wife lives, cannot rise to a 
higher degree than the office of priesthood. 

Every young candidate is chosen to the office 
of priesthood by the unanimous voice of the con¬ 
gregation and ordained by the bishop. Bishops 
are ordained by the Gathoghigos. More or less 
education is required from those who are called to 
the office of bishop, but the same is not necessarily 
demanded from priests. After his ordination he 
is confined in a room in the church, praying and 
fasting for a couple of weeks, and studying the rit¬ 
ual ceremonies of the church. Then he is ready 
to offer mass, to baptize, to commune, to marry, to 
bury, and even becomes mediator between the 
merciful God and penitent sinners by absolving 
them from their sins in the name of Him who 


ARMENIA AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 51 

said, “ Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remit¬ 
ted unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, 
they are retained.” 

There are nearly seventy Armenian bishops in 
Turkey, Russia, and Persia. 

There are two weekly fasts, on Wednesdays 
and Fridays. According to the calendar there are 
165 days of the year (including the weekly fasts) 
allotted to fasting. The fast consists in abstaining 
from animal food. The church services are held 
every morning and evening. Christmas is cele¬ 
brated on the 18th of January. 

THE ARMENIAN CHURCH NEEDS REFORMATION. 

The Armenian Church believes in all the fun¬ 
damental doctrines of Christianity, but it believes 
also in traditions. The church is called by the na¬ 
tion Orthodox Apostolic. But it is not difficult to 
show that the Armenian Church needs reforming. 
If we see that the church is full of traditions or 
unscriptural usages, let us remember that all these 
were established in a time when copies of Scrip¬ 
ture were scarce, when profound darkness pre¬ 
vailed over the entire world. Let us remember 
the epoch in which the nation accepted Christian¬ 
ity, the epoch when the church in the East began 
to lose her purity and simplicity. I am not apolo¬ 
gizing for the Armenian Church. I know her 
bright as well as her dark side. But I am very 
glad to say that the necessity of reformation in the 
church will become, by-and-by, a national question. 
The leading papers and enlightened individuals of 


52 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


the nation are manifesting a desire to see the day 
of entire reformation. This is indeed a very 
hopeful sign. The Reformation of Europe did not 
come all at once. The tendency of the nation is 
not backward, but forward ; not towards dark ages, 
but towards civilization and reformation. The 
articles of the newspapers, the sermons of learned 
bishops, the movement of Protestant work, all 
these are the glorious pioneers of that great day 
when all superstition and ignorance will pass away 
like dark clouds, and the Armenian Church will 
appear through the gloom, towering towards heav¬ 
en in all her attractive beauty, symmetry, and 
solidity, holding a very important place among the 
religious denominations of the world. 


MISSIONARIES AMONG THE ARMENIANS. 53 


III. 

PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES AMONG THE 

ARMENIANS, ETC. 

“Goye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” 

JESUS CHRIST. 

Native brethren having no authentic history 
of Protestant Missions in Turkey, I am obliged to 
compile my information from reliable books of the 
late Rev. Dr. H. G. O. Dwight, “ Christianity in 
Turkey,” one of the first American missionaries in 
Turkey, and the late Rev. Dr. R. Anderson, Secre¬ 
tary to the American Board, “ Missions to the 
Oriental Churches.” 

The great work was begun by the missionaries 
of the American Board, but previous to this there 
were a few steps taken which led to this work. 

THE FIRST STEP TAKEN BY A PRIEST. 

About 1760 A. D. there appeared an Armenian 
priest in the region of Constantinople. He wrote 
a book in which he exposed some errors of the 
Armenian Church. His book was never printed, 
but for many years copies of it were secretly ob¬ 
tained by individuals, and at the beginning of the 
movement of Protestantism they were providen¬ 
tially brought to light and used to much advantage 
in directing the attention of the people to neces¬ 
sary reforms in the church. 


54 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


THE BRITISH AND RUSSIAN BIBLE SOCIETIES. 

In 1813 both the British and Russian Bible So¬ 
cieties became so much interested in the spiritual 
condition of the people as to make the most active 
exertions to supply them with the Scriptures. A 
translation of the Bible in the ancient Armenian 
language was found among the people, but copies 
of it were extremely rare, and, of course, propor¬ 
tionately dear, and unintelligible to the masses of 
the people. These Societies published several 
thousand copies of the Bible in modern Armenian, 
which they circulated among the people. 

AMERICAN BOARD. 

The first Mission of the American Board to 
Asiatic Turkey was to Palestine, in the year 1819. 
But in the year 1829 it was resolved by the Pru¬ 
dential Committee, in Boston, Mass., to establish a 
Mission among the Armenians in Turkey. The 
first missionaries were Revs. Wm. Goodell, H. G. 
O. Dwight, John B. Adger, B. Schneider, W. G. 
Schauffler, C. Hamlin, E. Riggs, and G. W. Wood. 

At the beginning of their work they were wel¬ 
comed by the Armenian Patriarch at Constanti¬ 
nople and by the people, but after a time they 
(clergy and people) changed their policy. After a 
few years Constantinople, Broosa, Erzroom, Trebi- 
zond, great and important cities, became mission¬ 
ary stations. 

THE MISSIONARIES BEGIN TO PREACH. 

The missionaries began to preach in a new 


MISSIONARIES AMONG THE ARMENIANS. 55 

style, which was strange in the eyes of the people. 
Many of the people attended the prayer-meetings 
and Sabbath services and read carefully the tracts 
published by the missionaries. The missionaries 
at the same time opened schools in their stations, 
and not a few Armenians sent their children. 
The work of the missionaries was not easy. The 
veil of darkness which had covered for many cen¬ 
turies the horizon of the mind of the people, the 
superstition and fanaticism which had taken root 
among them, now had to be extirpated. Besides 
these, the missionaries were surrounded with 
many and great obstacles. Difficult languages 
were to be mastered, and habitual modes of think¬ 
ing and feeling prevailing among the people 
were to be learned. They lacked native helpers. 

OPPOSITION TO THE MISSIONARIES. 

Though the missionaries were surrounded by 
these difficulties and obstacles, yet their preaching 
spread widely from mouth to mouth, from home 
to home, from village to village, and from city to 
city. The Patriarch at Constantinople and the 
chiefs of the nation, moved by their national zeal 
and inspired by their religious sentiments, tried 
with all their power to stop the movement begun 
by the missionaries. 

While I am writing these lines let it be thor¬ 
oughly understood that I am in hearty sympathy 
with my nation; not indeed because they put ob¬ 
stacles in the way of the missionaries, nor because 
they persecuted their brethren, but because what 


56 LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 

they did to check the advance of the new move¬ 
ment was regarded by them as their religious 
duty. Persecutions of a similar nature have been 
found among Protestant denominations. The fact 
is that the chiefs of the nation could not see or 
realize the exact meaning of the present move¬ 
ment. The nation had lost her kingdom centuries 
ago, and the church had been, during their tribu¬ 
lation, the only sacred refuge. To touch the 
church was regarded as the same as touching the 
eye of the nation. The Romish Church had many 
years ago deprived the nation of thousands of her 
children; now to see another aggressive move¬ 
ment against the church was a thing which the 
people could not tolerate. The first movement 
made against the missionaries was to circulate 
false reports and rumors concerning them; as, for 
example, they said “ that chemistry which was 
taught in the mission school was Protestantism, 
and that it would transform all the pupils into 
Protestants.” Another superstition was that “a 
certain eminent brother was a sorcerer, and would 
cut a round piece of paper, which would become 
gold; that one such piece was given to every Ar¬ 
menian upon his becoming a Protestant, and being 
kept in his pocket, he could make use of it as long 
as he lived; and by fixing his eyes upon a man he 
could obtain complete mastery over him in every 
respect, and no one had power to break the charm; 
also that missionaries took a likeness of every one 
who went over to them and hung it up in one of 
their rooms, and if, at any subsequent period, any 


MISSIONARIES AMONG THE ARMENIANS. 57 

one of them should apostatize, the missionaries 
would send a ball through his picture with a pistol, 
and after that the man would soon die.” 

PERSECUTION AGAINST THE FOLLOWERS OF MIS¬ 
SIONARIES. 

Persecution was raised against those who at¬ 
tended services of the missionaries, and the whole 
nation concentrated its efforts in trying to crush 
out the movement. That persecution is one of the 
best means of propagation was proved in apostolic 
times, in the European Reformation, as well as in 
Turkey half a century ago. 

The limits of this book will not allow me to 
present many cases of this kind. But in order 
to show the nature of the persecutions I will be 
content to cite one case. 

A HEROIC PRIEST. 

“ A priest named Harootun (Resurrection), of 
Nicomedia, a city near Constantinople, was an ex¬ 
tremely modest and timid man, and for some time 
had been living in open conformity with the rites 
of his church, though secretly he was a true friend 
of the new movement. In this he had struggled 
against his own convictions. But at last he could 
not conceal his convictions longer, and persecu¬ 
tion brought him fully into the light. 

“ The Bishop of Nicomedia was a furious perse¬ 
cutor, and he required the priest Harootun to 
write a confession of his faith to be read publicly 
in the church. With this requirement the priest 


58 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


complied, though the document was far from giv¬ 
ing satisfaction to the bishop ; he closed by say¬ 
ing, ‘ I shall remain faithful even unto death, and 
believe that I shall enjoy through eternity the 
promised rest; and whatever violence, banishment, 
or disgrace are prepared for me I am ready to re¬ 
ceive with love and joy for the love and glory of 
God.’ 

“This document filled the bishop and others 
with rage. On the following Sabbath the priest 
Harootun was taken to the church, where the 
bishop publicly read the confession of his faith 
and immediately pronounced him excommuni¬ 
cated and accursed. The priests violently tore 
from his shoulders his clerical robes, and with 
shouts cried ‘ Drive out the accursed one from the 
church !’ The excited people fell upon the poor 
priest, and with many kicks and blows thrust him 
into the streets. Priest Harootun received all 
these indignities with the greatest meekness and 
returned to his house full of joy. But this was not 
all. The bishop cast him into prison, and after 
lying there thirteen days, he was conducted by 
a soldier to the bishop’s house, where the Patri¬ 
arch’s creed was offered to him for signature. The 
priest Harootun declined to sign the creed, even 
after much urging, and he was told that by the or¬ 
der of the Patriarch his beard must be cut off. 
(Among the people of the East no greater indig¬ 
nity can be put upon a man, and especially upon a 
priest.) Priest Harootun replied, ‘ I am ready, God 
helping me, to submit to this, and even to shed my 


MISSIONARIES AMONG THE ARMENIANS. 59 

blood.’ A barber was called in and not only bis 
beard was shaved off, but every particle of hair 
from his neck to the crown of his head. They cast 
his clerical cap, which they had torn, into a filthy 
corner of the street together with the hair. The 
boys now fastened the beard to the end of a long 
pole, and also placed the disfigured and tattered 
fragments of the cap upon it and paraded them 
through the streets of the city shouting, ‘ Behold 
the cap of the accursed Harootun.’ He was after¬ 
ward sent back to prison. He wrote soon after to 
a brother, ‘ I entered the prison with a joyful 
heart, committing myself to God, and giving glory 
to him that he had enabled me to pass through 
fire and sword and had brought me to a place of 
repose.’ ” 

RECANTATION ISSUED BY THE PATRIARCH. 

During these days a new creed and recantation 
was issued by the Patriarch of Constantinople, and 
was circulated through the Turkish Empire, and 
Protestants were summoned before their ecclesi¬ 
astical rulers, and were required by their command 
to sign the creed and recantation. The creed was 
composed of nine articles, and the sixth is: “ Do 
you confess and receive that the Holy Virgin 
Mary, having brought forth Christ-God, is the mo¬ 
ther of God, and at the time of his birth and after¬ 
wards, her virginity remained unimpaired; that 
she is ever virgin, and worthy of honor above all 
the saints; and that the holy wooden cross, having 
been stained by the divine blood of Christ, and 


6 o 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


other holy and anointed crosses, on account of 
being the image of this, are worthy of adoration? 
Likewise that the intercession of the saints is ac¬ 
ceptable to God, and their relics and anointed pic¬ 
tures are worthy of honor, and that God always 
works miracles by means both of the holy cross 
and holy relics?” 

THE FORM OF THE SECOND ANATHEMA OF THE 
PATRIARCH AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 

“ Be it known to the pious flock of our church 
in the metropolis that on last Sabbath the decree 
and anathema were read for the information of 
the pious, but some of the people understood it as 
referring only to the cursed nonentity Virtanes, 
falsely called priest, and not also to the others. 
Wherefore we consider it necessary to-day to re¬ 
peat it, and to inform you that not only that 
cursed one, Virtanes, but also all that are of his 
sentiments, deceivers and blasphemers against the 
church, and followers of the corrupt new sects, 
are accursed and excommunicated and anathema¬ 
tized by God and by all his saints and by us. 
Wherefore, whoever has a son that is such an one, 
or a brother or a partner, and gives him bread or 
assists him in making money or has intercourse 
with him as a friend or does business with him, 
let such persons know that they are nourishing a 
venomous serpent in their houses which will one 
day injure them with its deadly poison, and they 
will lose their souls. Such persons give bread to 
Judas. Such persons are enemies of the holy faith 


MISSIONARIES AMONG THE ARMENIANS. 61 

of Christianity and destroyers of the holy Ortho¬ 
dox Church of the Armenians and a disgrace to 
the whole nation. Wherefore their houses and 
shops also are accursed; and whoever goes to visit 
them, we shall learn and make them public to the 
holy church by terrible anathemas .... Where¬ 
fore by this my letter of notification I again com¬ 
mand and warn the pious to keep aloof from these 
wicked deceivers, for the love of the holy faith of 
Jesus Christ, the glory of the holy church, and 
the interest and advantage of your own souls. 
Farewell, and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ 
be with you all. Amen.” 

THE EFFECT OF THE ANATHEMA. 

The effect of this anathema at such a time 
naturally would be great, and it was manifested 
everywhere. At Constantinople nearly forty Prot¬ 
estants had their shops closed and their licenses 
taken away. Nearly seventy persons were ejected 
from their own houses and were thus exposed as 
vagabonds and committed to prison. To increase 
the distress, bakers were forbidden to furnish 
them with bread, and water-carriers to supply 
them with water. More than thirty persons were 
exiled, imprisoned, and bastinadoed. 

THE FIRST EVANGELICAL ARMENIAN CHURCH. 

We come now to the great crisis hour, when 
the church would be deprived a second time of 
thousands of her children. It was on the first day 
of July, 1846, that the Evangelical brethren in 


62 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


Constantinople, forty in number, came together 
for the purpose of forming themselves into a 
church. They organized the First Evangelical 
Armenian Church of Constantinople. 

Churches were formed at Nicomedia, Adapa* 
zar, Trebizond, and several other places. 

EVANGELICAL BRETHREN RECOGNIZED AS A SEPA. 

RATE COMMUNITY BY DECREE OF THE 

SULTAN. 

Here occurred what seems to me the most 
heart-rending event in the history of Protestant 
brethren in Turkey, an event which both many 
Gregorian and Evangelical Armenians deplore, 
that is the organization of Protestantism as a 
separate community from the nation. Those were 
days of darkness. Neither party could see what 
policy to adopt. On the one hand the chiefs of 
the nation, desiring to keep the unity of the 
church and nation, persecuted those who held 
different religious views from their own; on the 
other hand, Evangelical brethren, being excom¬ 
municated from the church and not having pro¬ 
tection against persecution, were obliged to secure 
their liberty by forming a separate national organ¬ 
ization. Both parties were sincere in their move¬ 
ments. Gregorian Armenians thought they had 
a right to persecute, and Protestant Armenians 
that they had a right to organize a separate na¬ 
tional institution. If the Government had pro¬ 
tected the persecuted Protestants, the separation 
would not have been necessary; but she could not 



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MISSIONARIES AMONG THE ARMENIANS. 63 

do it, since the Protestants were under the hierar¬ 
chy of the Armenian Patriarch and connected 
with the national institution. I believe, with 
many Protestants, that the time is not far distant 
when the Evangelical brethren will be united 
with the main body under one government ad¬ 
ministration. 

SKETCH OF THE PROTESTANT ORGANIZATION. 

Several European representatives in Constanti¬ 
nople, especially the English, performed an im¬ 
portant part in securing civil freedom to the Evan¬ 
gelical brethren. Prominent among these was 
Sir Stradford Canning (afterwards entitled Sir 
Stradford De Redcliffe), the English ambassador 
in Constantinople, whose noble and immortal ef¬ 
forts for religious liberty in Turkey are worthy of 
the highest praise. On the 15 th of November, 
1847, an Imperial decree recognized the Evangel¬ 
ical brethren as constituting an independent Prot¬ 
estant Armenian community in Turkey. After 
the issuing of the decree the persecution was 
stopped and the brethren were safe under the 
protection of the Government. 

THE IMPERIAL FIRMAN. 

The First Imperial Firman (of Sultan Mejid) 
obtained from the Sublime Porte by the Right 
Honorable Lord Stradford De Redcliffe, in favor 
of the Protestants: 

“To my Vizier, Mohammed Pasha, Prefect of 
the Police in Constantinople, the Honorable Mim 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


64 

ister and Glorious Counsellor and Model of the 
World, and Regulator of the affairs of the Com¬ 
munity; who, directing the public interests with 
sublime prudence, consolidating the structure of 
the Empire with wisdom, and strengthening the 
columns of its prosperity and glory, is the recipi¬ 
ent of every grace from the Most High. May 
God prolong his glory. 

“ When this sublime and august mandate 
reaches you, let it be known that hitherto those 
of my Christian subjects who have embraced the 
Protestant faith, in consequence of their not being 
under any especially appointed superintendence, 
and in consequence of the Patriarch and primates 
of their former sects, which they have renounced, 
naturally not being able to attend to their affairs, 
have suffered much inconvenience and distress. 
But in necessary accordance with my imperial 
compassion, which is the support of all and which 
is manifested to all classes of my subjects, it is 
contrary to my imperial pleasure that any one 
class of them should be exposed to suffering. 

“As, therefore, by reason of their faith, the 
above-mentioned are already a separate commu¬ 
nity, it is my royal compassionate will that for 
facilitating the conducting of their affairs, and 
that they may obtain ease, quiet, and safety, a 
faithful and trustworthy person from among them¬ 
selves, and by their own selection, should be ap¬ 
pointed, with the title of ‘Agent of the Protes¬ 
tants,’ and that he should be in relations with the 
Prefecture of the Police. 


MISSIONARIES AMONG THE ARMENIANS. 65 

“ It shall be the duty of the agent to have in 
charge the register of the male members of the 
community, which shall be kept at the police; 
and the register shall be kept at the police, and 
the agent shall cause to be registered therein all 
births and deaths in the community. And all 
applications for passports and marriage-licenses, 
and all petitions on affairs concerning the com¬ 
munity that are to be presented to the Sublime 
Porte, or to any other department, must be given 
in under the official seal of the agent. 

“For the execution of my will, this my im¬ 
perial sublime and august command has been 
especially issued and given from my sublime 
chancery. 

“ Hence thou who art the minister above 
named, according as it has been explained above, 
will execute to the letter the preceding ordinance; 
only, as the collection of the capitation tax and 
the delivery of passports are subject to particular 
regulations, you will not do anything contrary to 
those regulations. You will not permit anything 
to be required of them in the name of fee or on 
other pretences, for marriage licenses or registra¬ 
tion. 

“You will see to it that like the other commu¬ 
nities of the empire in all their affairs, such as 
procuring cemeteries and places of worship, they 
should have every facility and every needed assist¬ 
ance. You will not permit that any of the other 
communities shall in any way interfere with their 
edifices or with their worldly matters or concerns, 

5 


Life In the Orient. 


66 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


or in short, with any of their affairs, either secular 
or religious, that thus they may be free to exer¬ 
cise the usages of their faith. 

“And it is enjoined upon you not to allow 
them to be molested an iota in these particulars 
or in any others; and that all attention and perse¬ 
verance be put in requisition to maintain them in 
quiet and security. And, in case of necessity, they 
shall be free to make representations regarding 
their affairs through their agent to the Sublime 
Porte. 

“ When this, my imperial will, shall be brought 
to your knowledge and appreciation, you will have 
this august decree registered in the necessary de¬ 
partments, and then give it over to remain in the 
hands of these my subjects. And see you to it 
that its requirements be always in future per¬ 
formed in their full import. 

“ Thus know thou and respect my sacred sig¬ 
net. Written in the holy month of Moharrem, 
1267 (November, 1850). 

“Given in the well-guarded city, Constan- 
tineyeh.” Christianity in turkey. 

STATISTICS. 

The statistics here given are those of the 
American Board, which is the largest in Turkey, 
and which is connected chiefly with the Armenian 
people. They are taken from the official reports 
of the American Board of Commissioners for For¬ 
eign Missions of 1909: 

Western Turkey Mission, organized in 1819. Mis- 


MISSIONARIES AMONG THE ARMENIANS. 67 

sionaries and assistant missionaries, 84 ; native 
helpers, 405 ; churches, 44; church members, 4,771; 
pupils in Sunday-schools, 11,181. 

Eastern Turkey Mission , organized in 1836. Mis¬ 
sionaries and assistant missionaries, 51; native 
helpers, 205 ; churches, 32 ; church members, 2,436 ; 
pupils, 5,255. 

Central Turkey Mission , organized in 1847. Mis¬ 
sionaries and assistant missionaries, 31; native 
helpers, 366; churches, 35 ; church members, 7,333 ; 
pupils, 15,099. 

European Turkey Mission, organized in 1858. 
Missionaries and assistant missionaries, 28; native 
helpers, 96; churches, 19; church members, 1,408; 
pupils, 2,584. 

MISSIONS IN THE LEVANT. 

The following extracts are taken from articles 
concerning “ Missions in the Levant/’ written by 
Rev. Edwin M. Bliss, of Constantinople, published 
in the “ Missionary Review ”: 

“The work of the American churches in the 
Levant, commenced by the little band who sailed 
from Boston under the auspices of the infant 
American Board, is now carried on by seven or¬ 
ganized American societies—six representing the 
Congregational, Presby teri an, U nited Presbyterian, 
Reformed Presbyterian, Southern Presbyterian, 
and Methodist denominations; and one, the Amer¬ 
ican Bible Society, representing all and helping to 
unite all upon the one foundation, the Word of 


68 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


God. There are also two colleges, Robert College 
at Constantinople, and the Syrian Protestant Col¬ 
lege at Beirht, independent of endowment and 
management by the societies. Three more at 
Harpoot, Aintab, and Marsovan, in Asia Minor, 
have endowments and boards of trustees, but prac¬ 
tically are under the management of the societies. 
Two more at Oroomiah, Persia, and Osiout, Egypt, 
are under control of the societies. There is also 
the Bible House at Constantinople, connected 
with no society, owned and managed by a board 
of trustees in New York. On the shelves of the 
Bible House are the Scriptures in more than thir¬ 
ty languages and four hundred styles of printing 
and binding, so that no one, whether he be officer 
of the sultan’s household or villager on the moun¬ 
tains of Kurdistan, may say, ‘There is no Bible 
for me.’ 

“ These different organizations are represented 
by 133 American gentlemen, mostly ordained and 
married men, and 119 single ladies. They are 
located in 42 central stations, and have nearly 500 
out-stations connected with them. Over 1,700 na¬ 
tive preachers, teachers, and colporters work un¬ 
der their superintendence. There are 185 churches 
with 15,122 communicants; 763 schools with near¬ 
ly 33,ooo scholars; 43,000 copies of the Scriptures, 
in whole or in part, have been distributed in one 
year. Unfortunately the statistics of religious and 
educational books are not kept distinct by the 
different societies. A general estimate of 50,000 
books, 100,000 text-books, and 400,000 tracts would 


MISSIONARIES AMONG THE ARMENIANS. 69 

perhaps represent the work of a year. Aside from 
these are the periodicals, five weeklies and six 
monthlies; the latter chiefly children’s papers; 
one weekly in Bulgarian reached a circulation of 
over 4,000. The medical work has assumed great 
proportions. Here again no statistics are given, 
but to say that 25,000 cases are attended yearly 
would probably be within the truth. These all 
involve an annual expenditure of American funds 
amounting to nearly $500,000. How much the na¬ 
tive communities contribute in salaries of preach¬ 
ers and teachers, tuition, cost of books, and gen¬ 
eral community and church expenses, it is impos¬ 
sible to say without better data than are furnished 
as yet. The value of property in land, buildings, 
schools, printing and binding apparatus, stock of 
printed sheets, bound books, etc., is very great. 
In Constantinople alone it is over $400,000 .... 
The forty-two central stations include nearly every 
city of size and importance in Bulgaria, Roumelia, 
Asiatic Turkey, North Persia, Syria, and Egypt. 

“The power of Christian missions over the 
religious thought and life of those who do not 
openly declare their adherence to evangelical 
Christianity is shown in many ways. Up to the 
present year there have been distributed by the 
American Bible Society one and a half millions of 
copies. These have been in about the proportion 
of one Bible, three Testaments, and five portions, 
i. e., single Gospels, Psalms, and Proverbs. When 
it is remembered that the immense majority of 
these have been sold, and that certainly not more 


7o 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


than one-half, if more than one-third, has gone 
into evangelical families; when it is remembered 
too that book-purchasing is not in the Levant 
what it is so often in America—that it almost uni¬ 
formly represents a genuine interest in the book— 
some idea may be gained of the unseen influ¬ 
ence that is being exerted all over that great coun¬ 
try. 

“ A Bible Society colporter in the inn of a small 
village on the Black Sea coast was challenged to 
argument by a group of young men thoroughly 
versed in European infidelity. Being an uneduca¬ 
ted man, he found it difficult to meet them. To 
his utter surprise, a Turkish priest sitting by, ask¬ 
ing him for a Testament, took up the argument 
and utterly silenced the young men, who left ac¬ 
knowledging their defeat. To the colporter, who 
expressed his thanks for the timely aid, he said, 
‘ Go tell the gentlemen at the Bible House not to 
be discouraged. There are many like myself who 
read this good Book, accept its faith, and are try¬ 
ing to lead the life of Christ. We do not openly 
confess him, for we feel that the time has not yet 
come, but it will come, and then you will see the 
fruit of the seed you are sowing.’ 

“ Among the most significant facts in the reli¬ 
gious life of the old Christian communities of the 
Levant are the changes that have been brought 
about in not a few places in the church services. 
Sabbath-schools and Bible-classes have been estab¬ 
lished, and at the present time the American Bible 
Society is printing in Constantinople an edition of 


MISSIONARIES AMONG THE ARMENIANS. 7 I 

the ancient Armenian Bible, at the combined ear¬ 
nest request of Gregorian and Papal as well as 
Evangelical Armenians. 

“It is easy for the chance traveller or super¬ 
ficial observer to find occasion for legitimate criti¬ 
cism, not so easy for even the careful sympathi¬ 
zer to judge accurately the forces that are working 
for the development of communities. Those who 
know best and most intimately the local internal 
life of these communities and churches have the 
most faith in them. They recognize that mistakes 
are made, but they believe that throughout these 
lands, dear to every Christian heart, the life 
planted by the apostles, nourished by the church 
fathers, w T ill erelong more than regain its pristine 
purity and strength. 

TRIALS. 

The history of the American missions in Turkey 
is highly interesting. The Lord signally blessed 
the mission work in all its departments. It may 
be safely said that the American Board of Foreign 
Missions has no more hopeful and prosperous field 
than its missions in the Turkish Empire. There 
are signs that under the new regime of the Gov¬ 
ernment, with religious freedom and educational 
uplift, the missions will reap a more abundant 
harvest. It is a fact that the old prejudices 
against the missionaries have now almost van¬ 
ished. The people know better what missionaries 
are for, and the missionaries reciprocally know 
more about the people and their needs. 


72 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


There were trials at the beginning of the work, 
and some of them still remain. One of them is 
linguistic, there being many languages spoken in 
Turkey. The Turkish is most widely spoken, 
as the Turks form the majority of the population, 
but every race has its own language. If there is 
any country where a missionary should be a poly¬ 
glot, that is Turkey. I know missionaries who 
have learned the native languages so perfectly as 
not only to be able to preach, but to write valu¬ 
able books. 

Another trial is climatic. How many precious 
lives, young lives, have been sacrificed because of 
variable climate and unhealthful conditions in all 
the years of the American missions it would be 
difficult to estimate. 

The attitude of the Turkish Government to¬ 
wards the missions was another trial. It is a fact 
that the Protestant missionaries do not have the 
same privileges as the Roman Catholic mission¬ 
aries have. It is a fact also that wherever Moham¬ 
medanism has a dominating power, there Chris¬ 
tianity is undermined. As the country is going 
to have a liberal government now, it is hoped 
that all classes will enjoy perfect religious liberty 
without any molestation, and that the mission¬ 
aries will have a larger sphere of usefulness. 


GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE OF THE COUNTRY. 73 


IV. 

TURKE Y. 

THE GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE OF THE COUNTRY. 

The geographical position of Turkey is very 
peculiar. It connects Europe with Asia, the East 
with the West, Asia with Africa, the Mohamme¬ 
dan world with the Christian world. 

The topography of the country is beautiful. 
We can easily understand Byron’s enthusiasm in 
the following verses: 

“Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle 
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime? 

Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, 

Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime? 

Know ye the land of the cedar and vine 
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine; 
Where the light wings of zephyr, oppressed with perfume, 
Wax faint o’er the gardens of gule (rose) in her bloom; 
Where the citron and olive are the fairest of fruit, 

And the voice of the nightingale never is mute; 

Where the tints of the earth and the hues of the sky, 

In color though varied, in beauty may vie, 

And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye; 

Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, 

And all save the spirit of man is divine? 

’Tis the clime of the East—’tis the land of the sun— 
Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done?” 

To many the mention of the name Turkey is 
offensive; but let it be known that whatever may 
be the present condition of Turkey, it holds, and 
will hold, a very prominent position in the world 


74 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


and in the history of the past, associated with the 
ancient kingdoms of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, 
and Persia. Here is the cradle of the three great 
religions of the world, Judaism, Christianity, and 
Mohammedanism, which have changed and shaped 
the fate of nations. It is the Bible land. 

About the productiveness and fertility of the 
country, I have to say that there is no other coun¬ 
try under the whole heavens which can be ranked 
above it. No other part of the world has yielded 
more abundantly all that could cheer the heart, 
tempt the appetite, and gratify the taste. The 
grains, the rice, the wine, tobacco, oil, rose-oil, 
honey, peaches, pomegranates, citrons, oranges, 
lemons, quinces, prunes, apples, grapes, melons, 
mulberries, cherries, olives, figs, chestnuts, opium, 
and all kinds of vegetables are excellent. For the 
use of man may be found camels, horses, ponies, 
sheep, oxen, buffaloes, cows, goats, the silky fleeced 
Angora goats, mules, and asses. 

Though the soil of Turkey, both in Europe and 
Asia Minor, is extraordinarily fertile, yet it is only 
scratched over for a mere living in spots here and 
there by the thinly settled inhabitants with ancient 
ploughs. One reason why the people fail to exert 
themselves even a little more than they do is on 
account of the irregular decimation of the crops 
by the tax-gatherers. It may be said that the 
taxes virtually eat up the substance of the peas¬ 
ants. The peasants feel that farming does not 
pay in a land adapted to agricultural purposes. 
The farmer has to give the Government the tithe 


GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE OF THE COUNTRY. 75 

of his crop. Hence, after he threshes his com he 
leaves it in the field and waits the call of the tithe- 
gatherer. During this time the crop either is 
often parched by the sun or rotted by the rain, 
while the birds of the air and other animals take 
their share, before the lazy tithe-gatherer comes. 
The result is a loss both for the farmer and the 
Government. If we had a better administration, 
a few banks to loan money to the farmer on rea¬ 
sonable terms, modern agricultural implements, 
more railroads to carry the products to the mar¬ 
kets, the condition of the people would be greatly 
improved, the land, which is now but half cultiva¬ 
ted, would be tilled to its utmost capacity, and 
Turkey would become the great granary of the 
world. 

A BRIEF SKETCH OF OTTOMAN HISTORY. 

The name Ottoman or Othman is derived from 
Osman, the first sultan, 1299 A. D. Therefore the 
natives are called Osmanlis. “ Turks ” is the name 
given by others; the Turks do not call themselves 
by that name. Osman is the pride of the nation, 
and to become an Osmanli is in the eyes of the 
Turks the highest honor that can be possessed in 
the world. 

The early history of the Osmanlis is somewhat 
obscure. It is supposed that the word Turk is the 
corruption of Tu-Ku, a name given by the Chinese 
to those (Turks) who lived west of China about 
two hundred years before Christ. 


76 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


MOHAMMEDANISM A UNITING POWER. 

The religion of Mohammed in the middle of 
the seventh century gave unity to all Turkish 
tribes. After this the history of the Turks began 
to be an authentic one. After this we see the 
banner of their prophet carried from victory to 
victory. They pressed forward over the mount¬ 
ains of Kurdistan, along the banks of the Euphra¬ 
tes and Tigris, occupying the land between the 
Persian Gulf and the mountains of Caucasus and 
between Ararat and the Black Sea. 

FIRST SULTAN OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 

Othman, or Osman, the son of Ertoghrul, com¬ 
menced his reign on his father’s death, in 1288 
A. D. He made considerable conquests in Asia 
Minor, pressing northward into the neighbor¬ 
hood of Constantinople. He was an able, temper¬ 
ate, vigorous, and enterprising ruler; he encour¬ 
aged industry and agriculture. Broosa in Asia 
Minor was the first capital of the Ottoman Em¬ 
pire. Othman died at Broosa in 1326. 

His son, Orchan, added to the young empire 
Nicsea and Nicomedia. He married a daughter of 
the Greek Emperor Cantacuzene. In 1336 he took 
a fortified castle on the European side of the Dar¬ 
danelles, and in 1357 the city of Gallipoli. 

Murad, the son of Orchan and grandson of 
Osman, subdued all of Asia Minor; Adrianople 
became a second capital of the empire. Bulgaria, 
Thrace, Macedonia, and Servia became its tributa- 


GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE OF THE COUNTRY. 77 

ries. His son, Bayazid, added Wallachia, a part of 
Bosnia, Thessaly, and Morea. 

Mohammed, the son of Bayazid, ruled over 
what his father had conquered. 

His son, Murad II., defeated John Hunyades, 
the Hungarian hero, after three wars, and Hun¬ 
gary became tributary to the sultan. Murad turned 
to Greece and conquered it as well as Albania. 

But Ottoman conquest could not be comple¬ 
ted without placing Constantinople in the list 
of conquered cities. The son of Murad II., Mo¬ 
hammed II., with his 200,000 men fought against 
the 6,000 defenders of the capital and captured it, 
and put an end to the Greek Empire, May 29, 
1453. After this the entire Peloponnesus, Athens, 
Herzegovinia, Venice, Moldavia, and Crimea be¬ 
came tributaries. 

Bayazid II., son of Mohammed, came in contact 
with Persia, and for the first time with Russia, in 
1495. 

Selim I., the younger son of Bayazid II., con¬ 
quered Egypt. He was succeeded by Suleyman I., 
the Magnificent. Under his reign the power of 
the empire reached its highest point. His reign 
was the longest of all the sultans of the Ottoman 
Empire, being forty-six years. During his long 
reign Transylvania, including its capital and chief 
fortress, Buda and Pesth, Austrian provinces, be¬ 
came tributaries. The sceptre of Suleyman swayed 
over the north coast of Africa, Egypt, Tunis, Trip¬ 
oli, Algiers, and Morocco. He had conquered 
also a large part of Persia. 


78 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


“ Sultan Suleyman left to his successors an em¬ 
pire to the extent of which few permanent addi¬ 
tions were ever made, except the islands of Cyprus 
and Candia. . . . The Turkish dominions in his 
time comprised all the most celebrated cities of 
Biblical and classical history, except Rome, Syra¬ 
cuse, and Persepolis. The sites of Carthage, Mem¬ 
phis, Tyre, Nineveh, Babylon, and Palmyra were 
Ottoman ground; and the cities of Alexandria, 
Jerusalem, Smyrna, Damascus, Nice, Prusa, 
Athens, Philippi, and Adrianople, besides many 
of later but scarce inferior celebrity, such as Al¬ 
giers, Cairo, Mecca, Medina, Basra, Baghdad, and 
Belgrade, obeyed the Sultan of Constantinople. 
The Nile, the Jordan, the Orontes, the Euphrates, 
the Tigris, the Tanais, the Borysthenes, the Dan¬ 
ube, the Hebrus, and the Ilyssus rolled their wa¬ 
ters ‘within the shadow of the Horsetails.’ The 
eastern recess of the Mediterranean, the Propontis, 
the Palus Maeotis, the Euxine, and the Red Sea 
were Turkish lakes. The Ottoman crescent 
touched the Atlas and the Caucasus; it was su¬ 
preme over Athos, Sinai, Ararat, Mt. Carmel, Mt. 
Taurus, Ida, Olympus, Pelion, Haemus, the Carpa¬ 
thian and the Acroceraunian heights. An empire 
. . . . embracing many of the richest and most 
beautiful regions of the world had been acquired 
by the descendants of Ertoghrul, in three centu¬ 
ries from the time when their forefather wandered 
a homeless adventurer at the head of less than 
five hundred fighting men.”* 

* Sir E. Creasy, 197 (Ed. 1877). 


GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE OF THE COUNTRY. 79 


GENEALOGY OF OTTOMAN SULTANS. 


The following is the genealogical order of the 
Ottoman sultans after the death of Suleyman the 
Magnificent: 


Selim II. reigned 
Murad III. “ 

Mohammed III. “ 
Ahmed I. “ 

Mustapha I. “ 
Osman II. “ 

Mustapha I. “ 

Murad IV. 

Ibrahim /. “ 

Mohammed IV. “ 
Suleyman II. “ 
Ahmed II. “ 

Mustapha II. “ 


8 years. (1566-1574 A D.) 


21 

8 


u 

u 


14 

2 


« 

u 


4 

1 

17 

8 

39 

4 

4 

8 


u 

“ (second time.) 

u 


n 

M 

4 « 

a 


<< 


Ahmed III. 
Mahmoud I. 
Osman III. 
Mustapha III. 
Abd-ul-HamidI. “ 
Selim III. 
Mustapha IV. 
Mahmoud II. 

A bd-ul-Mejid 
Abd-ul-Aziz 


u 


u 


u 


u 


(< 


(( 


u 


u 


27 

24 

3 

17 
15 

18 

I 

31 

22 

14 


a 


u 


u 


it 


it 


it 


it 


u 


a 


u 


Murad V, not crowned, only a few months. 
Ahd-ul-Hamid II., reigned 3.^5 years. 
Mohammed V. was proclaimed April 27, 1909. 


8 o 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


OBSTACLES. 

For about three centuries, from the first Ot¬ 
toman sultan down to Suleyman the Magnifi¬ 
cent, the Grand Lawgiver, the Osmanlis marched 
from victory to victory. The reign of Sultan Su¬ 
leyman was the climax of Turkish victorious his¬ 
tory. But the pride of Russia and the alliance of 
Hungary, Poland, and Austria not only put great 
obstacles in the progressive career of the Ottoman 
conquerors, but those powers led to the narrowing 
of the Turkish boundaries; especially by frequent 
wars with Russia during the present century, 
which have been very costly indeed to the great 
Turkish Empire. 

“Thus was Turkey gradually reduced to its 
present restricted dimensions. In its old extent, 
when the Porte ruled not merely the narrow ter- 
ritory now called Turkey in Europe, but Greece, 
Bulgaria, and Eastern Rumelia, Rumania, Servia, 
Bosnia, and Herzegovinia, with the Crimea and a 
portion of Southern Russia, Asia Minor to the 
borders of Persia, Egypt, Syria, Tripoli, Tunis, 
Algiers, and numerous islands in the Mediterra¬ 
nean—not counting the vast but mainly desert 
tract of Arabia—the total population (at the pres¬ 
ent time) would be over 50,000,000, and the square 
mileage over 2,000,000, or nearly twice the size 
of Europe without Russia. One by one her prov¬ 
inces have been taken away. Algiers and Tunis 
have been incorporated with France, and thus 
175,000 square miles and over 5,000,000 of in- 



ADANA SEEN AFTER THE MASSACRE. 

















GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE OF THE COUNTRY. 81 

habitants have transferred their allegiance. Egypt 
is practically independent, and this means a loss of 
500,000 miles and over 6,000,000 of inhabitants. 
Asiatic Turkey alone has suffered comparatively 
little diminution. This forms the bulk of her 
present dominions, and comprises about 680,000 
square miles and over 16,000,000 of population. 
In Europe her losses have been almost as severe 
as in Africa, where Tripoli alone remains to her. 
Servia and Bosnia are ‘ administered ’ by Austria, 
and thereby she lost nearly 40,000 miles and 3,500,- 
000 of people have become Austrian subjects. 
Wallachia and Moldavia are united in the inde¬ 
pendent kingdom of Rumania, diminishing the 
extent of Turkey by 46,000 miles and over 5,000,- 
000 of inhabitants. Bulgaria is now independent, 
and Eastern Rumelia has lately de facto become 
part of Bulgaria, and the two contain nearly 40,000 
square miles and 3,000,000 .of inhabitants. The 
kingdom of Greece, with its 25,000 miles and 
2,000,000 of population, has long been separated 
from its parent. In Europe, where the Turkish 
territory once extended to 230,000 square miles, 
with a population of nearly 20,000,000, it now 
reaches only the total of 66,000 miles and 4,500,000; 
it has lost nearly three-fourths of its land and 
about the same proportion of its people.”* 

Though the limit of the Turkish dominion is 
narrowed, it is not fair to conclude from this re¬ 
striction of territory that the Turkish power is 
destroyed. To-day the Ottoman Empire holds an 
* Lane-Poole, “ The Story of Turkey.” 

Life In the Orient. 6 


82 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


important position among the European powers. 
A power which holds the place “ where two seas 
meet” and “two continents touch ” can hardly fail 
to retain its prestige. To-day the Turkish Em¬ 
pire, in many respects, is more systematized and 
strengthened than she was half a century ago. 
To-day the Ottoman Empire holds in her grasp a 
territorial area which is equal to one-fifth that of 
the United States, and equal to the German and 
Austro-Hungarian Empires, Italy, Denmark, Swit¬ 
zerland, Belgium, and Japan, embracing about 
700,000 square miles. 


THE GOVERNMENT. 


83 


V. 

THE GOVERNMENT. 

The present sultan is the supreme head and 
absolute monarch of the country. The sultans in 
ancient times used to lead their armies to the bat¬ 
tlefields and superintend the affairs of the land. 
But at the present time the general affairs are in 
the hands of the ministers appointed by the sul¬ 
tan, though the imperial signet is absolutely neces¬ 
sary to the enforcement of the work of the minis¬ 
ters. 

THE MINISTERS OF THE SUBLIME PORTE. 

The ministers of the Sublime Porte are: 

1. Grand Vizier, or Prime Minister. 

2. Sheikh-ul Islam, or Elder of Islam. 

3. The Minister of Interior Affairs. 

4. The Minister of Foreign Affairs. 

5. The Superintendent of the Cabinet Coun¬ 
cil. 

6. The Generalissimo of the Troops. 

7. The Minister of the Navy. 

8. The Minister of the Artillery. 

9. The Minister of Finance. 

10. The Minister of Commerce and Public 
Buildings. 

11. The Minister of Sacred Properties. 

12. The Minister of General Education. 

13. The Counsellor of the Grand Vizier. 


8 4 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


THE IMPERIAL COURT. 

The imperial court is composed of the follow* 
ing officers: 

1. Grand Admiral. 

2. The Chief of the Eunuchs. 

3. Agent of the Imperial family expenditures. 

4. The First Chamberlain. 

5. The First Scribe of the Imperial Court. 

6. The Minister of the Imperial Treasury. 

7. The First Imperial Chaplain. 

8. The First Imperial Body Guard. 

9. The Grand Master of Ceremonies and Inter¬ 
preter of the Imperial Divan (Court). 

10. The Chief Physician of the Sultan. 

11. The Special Scribe of the Sultan. 

12. The Commander of the Palatial Servants 
and of the Musicians. 

13. The Chief Imperial Hostler. 

The country is divided into Vilayets (provin¬ 
ces), each having its own Vali (Governor), ap¬ 
pointed and deposed by the Sultan. 

THE IDEA OF CITIZENSHIP IS FOREIGN TO THE 

PEOPLE. 

The non-Mohammedan people are not citizens 
but tebaa (subjects). They are born, live, and die 
subjects. I do not wish to say by this that the 
people have no privileges. They all have privi¬ 
leges, religious liberty, etc., but they have not the 
grand idea of citizenship of which every American 
is very proud and boastful. Such being the fact, 


THE GOVERNMENT. 


85 

the people naturally have no interest in regard to 
the political affairs of the country; while to the 
contrary, in America all men seem to be politi¬ 
cians. 


SUPERIORITY OF THE MOHAMMEDANS. 

The privileges of the ruling party (Mohamme¬ 
dans) are superior to those of the common people 
(non-Mohammedans). 

All the members of the cabinet, and all the 
members of the imperial court save two, and all 
the governors, thirty-two in number, are Osmanlis. 
There are some inferior officers among the tebaa . 

There are no non-Mohammedan soldiers in the 
Turkish army. In case of war only the members 
of the ruling class will be allowed to enlist in the 
army. No non-Mohammedan is permitted to take 
any part in the battles of the country. The Gov¬ 
ernment exacts from all male subjects (including 
the children) a military capitation tax of $i 25 per 
annum, which releases them from all military 
duty. This tax is rigidly collected. 

POPULATION. 

The population of Turkey is about 20,000,000 
and is very far from being homogeneous. They 
differ greatly in religion. The Mohammedan 
population form the majority. 

IN EUROPEAN TURKEY 

there are seven provinces with the following na¬ 
tionalities and religions: 


86 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


1. Armenians in religion are Gregorian, Cath¬ 
olic, and Protestant. 

2. Osmanlis or Turks, Mohammedan. 

3. Greeks, Orthodox Church. 

4. Bulgarians, Orthodox, Catholic, and Protes¬ 
tant. 

5. Albanians, Mohammedan, Orthodox, and 
Catholic. 

6. Wallachians, Greek Orthodox Church. 

7. The Jews, Mosaic. 

8. Tartars, Mohammedan. 

9. Circassians, Mohammedan. 

10. Ordinary Gypsies, Mohammedan and Chris¬ 
tian. 

IN ASIATIC TURKEY 

there are twenty-five provinces with the following 
nationalities and religions: 

1. Armenians in religion are Gregorian, Cath¬ 
olic, and Protestant. 

2. Osmanlis, Mohammedans. 

3. Greeks, Orthodox; a few Protestants. 

4. Jews, Mosaic. 

5. Arabs, Mohammedans. 

6. Maronites, Orthodox and Catholic. 

7. Nestorians, Nestorian and Protestant. 

8. Kurds, Mohammedan. 

9. Druses, mixed of idolatry, Judaism, Moham- 
medanism, and Christianity. 

10. Turkomans, Mohammedan. 

11. Circassians, Mohammedan. 

12. Persians, Mohammedan. 


THE GOVERNMENT. 87 

13. Syrians, mostly Christians, Catholics, Ortho¬ 
dox, and Protestant. 

All these nationalities live under the domain 
of the Turkish Empire, and practise their national 
customs and follow their religions with great lib¬ 
erty. 


RIVALRY BETWEEN THE NATIONALITIES. 

The principal nationalities are Moslems, Ar¬ 
menians, Greeks, Bulgarians, and Jews. It is not 
improper therefore to state a few words concern¬ 
ing them. About Armenians something has al¬ 
ready been said. 

MOSLEMS. 

There are about 15,000,000 Moslems in the 
Turkish Empire. One of the most distinguishing 
characteristics of this people is their fatalism. The 
sentiment of kader , predestination, is so strong 
among them that it creates a humble obedience 
and surrendering to the will of Allah, a submis¬ 
sion which can never be seen among the other 
races of the Orient. This conception of predesti¬ 
nation is so strong that it carries them to the 
verge somewhat of stoicism, by which they defy 
and disregard every misfortune and calamity that 
may fall upon them. The general sorrow, mourn¬ 
ing and weeping, and many improper tokens of 
grief which are manifested by other nations at the 
loss of their loved ones, hardly can be seen among 
Moslems. They regard such manifestations as a 
great sin against the kader of Allah, without 


88 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


whose knowledge “not a sparrow falleth to the 
ground/' 

They believe on the one hand that the human 
will is the faculty of conscious self-determination, 
but on the other hand their fatalistic idea that a 
man cannot be or do anything beyond his kader 
gives them a stationary character which is peculiar 
to them. Being rulers of the country, and having 
more privileges and opportunities than any other 
nation, it is remarkable that they are not more 
progressive than others. On the contrary, while 
other nations are climbing towards the highest 
rung of the ladder of civilization, Moslems are 
lingering on the lower stages of it. While others 
are getting rich, they are becoming poor. Others 
speak different languages, they stick to the Turk¬ 
ish. Others, while in their stores, call on men and 
women, giving them noble titles and inviting them 
to come and make bargains with them. Moslems, 
on the contrary, sit cross-legged in their stores in¬ 
dulging in their pipes and coffee, and do not at¬ 
tempt to sell their goods, but wait that their kader 
may bring customers to them. Men of other na¬ 
tions when they meet each other generally talk 
on business matters, but Moslems on sporting, 
horsemanship, etc., and enjoy themselves by list¬ 
ening to the proverbs and parables of story-tellers. 
The numbers of the other Oriental people are in¬ 
creasing in America; some of them have excellent 
positions; some of them are in universities and col¬ 
leges where they study theology, medicine, etc. 
Some are trying to increase their own capital and 


THE GOVERNMENT. 


89 

business, and many are working in factories. Mos¬ 
lems, on the contrary, are satisfied with their mo¬ 
notonous life and stay at home. A young Moslem 
who had spent a few months in England told me one 
day that he was disgusted with the customs and 
manners of the English people, and as soon as he 
arrived at Constantinople he kissed the ground and 
thanked Allah that he was at home! The Mos¬ 
lem people, however, are honest in their dealings, 
and hard laborers in ploughing their fields and 
reaping their harvests. 

The Moslem is kind and affectionate to his 
family. After he closes his shop he fills his hand¬ 
kerchief with fruits and sweetmeats and returns 
home with full hands to meet his wife and chil¬ 
dren. The Moslems are very cleanly people ; their 
houses in the cities are situated on healthy 
grounds with gardens around them, and the 
villages under fine and fruitful trees and beside 
murmuring streams. 

They have a splendid physique, are athletic, 
and make brave soldiers. Before them Europe 
trembled for centuries. They are good and kind 
neighbors, ready to help at any time without re¬ 
gard to nationality or faith. In hospitality they 
surpass all other nations. They show great kind¬ 
ness to everything around them. They do not 
worry their horses; they call them kind names, 
and treat their cattle as if of one family. 
Even those innumerable dogs, in the capital and 
in other cities, which lie under their feet are not 
kicked. 


90 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


They are devoted people. Five times every 
day they scrupulously take their ablution, and at 
the hour of prayer they frequently leave their 
shop half closed and go to the mosque, or spread 
their carpet, stand with their faces towards 
Mecca, and offer their prayers, not giving the least 
attention to anything else until they have per¬ 
formed their numerous prostrations before the 
merciful and omnipresent Allah. 

GREEKS. 

The Greek population of Turkey is about 
2,000,000. They are marked by their intelligence, 
versatility and activity. When they lost their 
proud capital, Constantinople, and became subject 
to the Ottoman dominion, the Greeks still proved 
themselves the second masters of the country, 
producing governors over the Greek islands, hos- 
podars over the Danubian principalities, and the 
best tradesmen and artists over all the land. 
Their patriarch occupies the first chair in the 
Sublime Porte among the national represen¬ 
tatives. 

The Greeks are very fond of learning. At 
present the finest schools of different branches 
belong to this nation. The sillogos of Constanti¬ 
nople is indeed the pride of the Philhellenists in 
the capital and in the Greek world. While other 
nations are hesitating in introducing foreign 
methods of education in their schools, the Greeks 
have already adopted them. In the university at 
Athens there are hundreds of Greek scholars from 



HIS PALACE TO TIIE MOSQUE FOR PRAYER. 








































THE GOVERNMENT. 


91 


Turkey. The very rich people send their children 
to European colleges. This people give more 
money for educational purposes than any other 
nation. 

The Greeks are a very proud and ambitious 
people. They recall their ancient philosophers, 
mighty heroes, and glorious martyrs, and do not 
hesitate at all to express their idea that the civil¬ 
ized world owes everything to them. 

They are a patriotic people. The heroes of 
Marathon seem still to inspire the nation, which 
ever and anon displays its readiness to do and suf¬ 
fer in the name of liberty. 

They are a bigoted people. Says one of their 
historians, “The ancient Greeks worshipped a 
hundred gods, the modern Greeks also as many 
saints. The ancient Greeks believed in oracles 
and prodigies, in incantations and spells; the mod¬ 
ern Greeks have faith in relics and miracles, in 
amulets and divinations. The ancient Greeks 
brought rich offerings and gifts to the shrines of 
their deities, for the purpose of obtaining success 
in war and preeminence in peace; the modern 
Greeks hang up dirty rags round the sanctuaries 
of their saints to shake off an ague or propitiate a 
mistress.” 

While other communities are more or less op¬ 
pressed, and their villages and fields are ransacked 
by their cruel neighbors, the property of the 
Greeks is safe. They are ready to fight and take 
their revenge for the injuries imposed by their 
enemies. While other nations are scattered thinly 


92 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


throughout the country, the Greeks on the con. 
trary are concentrated in large cities, as in Con¬ 
stantinople, Adrianople, Smyrna, etc., and on the 
shores of the Black and Mediterranean Seas. 

BULGARIANS. 

Though the majority of the Bulgarian people 
are not directly under the Turkish Empire, they 
have lived for centuries under the Ottoman sub¬ 
jection and are tributaries to the Sublime Porte. 
I feel that it is my duty to speak a few words 
about this noble people, which during late years 
has attracted the attention of the diplomatic world 
more than any other people in the Orient. 

There are about 4,000,000 Bulgarians who live 
between the Danube and the Balkans. The peo¬ 
ple are distinguished by their industry, sincer¬ 
ity, and virtue, full of respect for their spirit¬ 
ual heads and of zeal for their religion. They 
occupy a very important position by raising cattle 
and in farming. It is a remarkable fact that 
while other nations, after they lost their inde¬ 
pendence, were scattered over the country, the 
Bulgarians remained settled in European Turkey, 
in the Balkan Peninsula, in their ancient home. 
They were formerly known as a very brave peo¬ 
ple, extending their conquests over Moldavia and 
Albania, carrying their banner to the gates of 
Constantinople. But in 1018 A. D. they were 
overwhelmed by Basil II. 

Bulgaria in her history never had Athens for 
learning nor Constantinople for civilization; but 


THE GOVERNMENT. 93 

in the middle ages her standing was not inferior 
to that of Germany, England, and France. 

Bulgaria, falling between Turkey and Russia 
(the former being master of southeastern Europe 
and the latter of the northern), has been the horri¬ 
ble scene of battles between those two great Pow¬ 
ers. Consequently the Bulgarian towns and villa¬ 
ges were trampled on, their fields and vineyards 
and their rose-gardens were destroyed. After the 
expulsion of the Circassians from the Russian ter¬ 
ritories they were mostly settled in European 
Turkey, where this savage people added calamity 
to the already existing calamities of the unfortu¬ 
nate Bulgarians. It may be said without any 
exaggeration that among the Turkish subjects 
none suffered so much as this noble Slavonic race, 
who with their patience in labor, simplicity, and 
economy offered an inestimable blessing to all the 
country. Had they a better chance they would 
have been perhaps the most progressive people 
among the Ottoman subjects. 

The year 1876 forms the darkest page of the 
Bulgarian history. Thousands of them, men, wo¬ 
men, and children, were killed in such a manner 
that the whole civilized world was horrified, and 
the columns of the papers in Europe and America 
were filled with it for months. The cause of this 
terrible massacre was that the people desired to be 
an independent nation. They could not obtain 
this but by their blood. The blood was shed, and 
the glorious morning of independence dawned 
upon the nation after one year from the date 


94 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


of the massacre; and those who were once the 
most stationary people of the Balkans are now 
the most prosperous, aggressive, and progressive. 
They have their own prince, capital, and gov¬ 
ernment. The threatening clouds which had 
darkened for centuries the horizon of the Balkans 
have passed away, and showers of blessings fell 
upon the Bulgarian homes, plains, schools, and 
churches. Bulgaria is now a kingdom. 

Thousands of Bulgarian young men now are 
studying at home and abroad and are preparing a 
more brilliant future for the nation. Robert Col¬ 
lege, on the charming heights of the Bosphorus, is 
giving the nation able statesmen, and its sister 
“ Home ” on the lofty landscape of Scutari is pre 
paring to give the nation intelligent mothers. 
The American Seminary at Samakov is promising 
to give the land educated ministers and teachers, 
and the “ Zornitza ,” or “ Morning Star,” at Con¬ 
stantinople, appears every week with its useful 
contents, enlightening thousands of minds and 
souls. Long live Bulgaria! 

THE JEWS. 

The number of Jews, the remnant of the lost 
tribes, in Turkey, including Egypt, is about 350,- 
000. They live in large numbers in Constantino¬ 
ple, Adrianople, Smyrna, Jerusalem, and Salonica. 
They have the same privileges in Turkey as the 
other nations, more than many of their brethren 
in Europe. 

These people are remarkable for their perse 


THE GOVERNMENT. 


95 


verance, patience, and endurance; through severe 
calamities they have preserved their individuality 
and cherished an undying hope; and their proud 
confidence is that the time is not far distant when 
they shall be a great nation, when God will wipe 
out their transgressions and send the Messiah who 
will be their mighty and conquering king. 

Though the nation is scattered over every 
clime on earth’s wide surface, they yet have every¬ 
where almost the same zeal and anticipation to¬ 
wards their national and religious future. They 
are in full expectation of the fulfilment of the old 
prophecy, “ The Lord will yet have mercy upon 
Jacob, and will yet choose Israel and set them in 
their own land.” It seems that every Jew’s mouth¬ 
piece is, “ If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my 
hand forget her cunning and my tongue cleave to 
the roof of my mouth.” Thousands from every 
part of the world visit Palestine, the promised 
land, some anxious to see the historic land of their 
fathers, and many to lay their bones near the 
graves of their ancestors. 

Their hope is strong as ever. Neither the per¬ 
secution raised by the Crusades, nor the Spanish 
Inquisition of the fifteenth century, nor their other 
afflictions in the past, have deprived this people of 
their great hope. 

The Turkish Jews, being exiled from Spain, 
speak a vile dialect of Spanish. They live, as in 
this country, very separate from other nations. 
Their homes, streets, dresses, etc., are all remark¬ 
ably distinct. They are subject to more or less 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


96 

contempt from other people. There are many 
among the Oriental nominal Christians who be¬ 
lieve that the Jews every year kill a Christian 
during their national Passover, Pesak, and mix the 
blood with their unleavened bread. This supersti¬ 
tion sometimes becomes so strong that many Jews 
are beaten and their houses are attacked. 

Few of them have very magnificent houses, but 
the majority of the people live in narrow streets 
and in poor houses. Sometimes two or three fam¬ 
ilies live together. 

They marry earlier in life than the other na¬ 
tions of Turkey. Therefore they have many chil¬ 
dren ; these swarm in the Jewish quarters like 
bees in their hives. 

The Jews leave all hard manual enterprises to 
others, and subsist by peddling and trade. They 
do not give the country either artisans or agri¬ 
culturists. Physically they are not strong. They 
look careworn, have sallow complexions and scanty 
beards. 

They observe the claims of their religion quite 
rigidly. On Saturdays the poorest of them appear 
in their best suit of clothes. They do not touch 
fire on that day, and therefore do not smoke. 
They do not transact any business. They are so 
strict in their observance of the Sabbath that they 
do not light their own candles on that day, but 
send for somebody to do it. And should a confla¬ 
gration happen, they will not try to quench it or 
save their property. 

There is no harmony or sympathy between 


THE GOVERNMENT. 


97 


these nationalities; on the contrary it may be said 
there is rivalry between them, and hatred towards 
each other is manifested in many ways. 

A man after crossing the great Atlantic to 
America and living several years, will begin to 
drop his national habits and adopt those of Ameri¬ 
ca ; if he does not, his children will certainly do it. 
It is not so in Turkey. Each nation generally 
speaks its own language, practises its own religion, 
follows the customs of its fathers, dresses in its 
national costume, and keeps its national traditions. 
There is no inter-marriage. It is not possible for a 
Greek to marry a Moslem girl, except he changes 
his faith and becomes a Mohammedan. The 
power of naturalization in America is so great 
that it attracts the attention of any man who 
has lived in this country even for a short time. 

Since I have been in America I am not able to 
distinguish between a Jew, German, or English¬ 
man, because all wear the same costume. But if a 
man goes to Turkey and spends a short time in 
Constantinople or any other prominent city, and 
gives himself to the study of the customs and cos¬ 
tumes of the people, he can discriminate who is a 
Turk and who is a Jew and an Armenian. 

Let those who accuse the Turkish Government 
for her mal-administration remember that she con¬ 
tains within her dominion these rival nationalities. 
A country which nurses in her bosom so many 
rival religions and antagonistic nationalities can¬ 
not be developed easily. 

How can these nationalities be brought into 

7 


Lifts in the Orient. 


9 8 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


harmony ? Here is one of the greatest and most 
important questions, which many European diplo¬ 
mats seem to ignore. 

THE MILITARY SYSTEM. 

The method of armament has undergone im¬ 
provement. The soldier is equipped with Euro¬ 
pean rifles, the artillery with European guns and 
ammunition, the cavalry is mounted on Arabian 
and Hungarian horses, and the whole military de¬ 
partment is put under the discipline of distin¬ 
guished German officers. The military force of 
the empire is about 700,000 men, divided into four 
departments. 

1. Nizam , or Active Army, 150,000 men. 

2. Ihtiyat , or First Reserves, 60,000 men. 

3. Redif, or Second Reserves, 120,000 men. 

4. MustahfiZy or Territorial Militia, 300,000 men. 

Every man is subject to military service in 

some one of these departments for twenty years. 
There are persons who are not subject to military 
exercise. These are called Bashi-Bozooks. 

The army is divided into seven military dis¬ 
tricts, the headquarters of which are situated at 
Constantinople, Adrianople, Monastir, Erzingian, 
Damascus, Baghdad, and Yemen. 

NAVAL SYSTEM. 

The navy is in excellent condition, having 
control of the Black Sea, and to some extent of the 
Lower Danube, which gives very strong advan¬ 
tage against any military attack. The steamboats 


THE GOVERNMENT. 


99 


are mostly of recent build and of excellent model. 
The late Admiral Hobart Pasha, an Englishman, 
was a most brilliant naval officer, and reformed 
the navy as far as possible. The navy consists of 
twenty iron-clads, seven of them frigates, eight 
corvettes, and five gunboats. 

FINANCE. 

The financial condition is not good. The rev¬ 
enue was in 1889 about $90,000,000, while the ex¬ 
penditure was about $125,000,000. The national 
debt is not less than $500,000,000. It is believed 
however that the financial condition is less critical 
now than it was years ago. It is advancing towards 
a sound system. 

THE RESOURCES OF THE EMPIRE. 

I have already given a few remarks about the 
productions of Turkey, but I wish to give a little 
further information about the resources of the 
empire. 

Cotton, wool, and the fleece of the Angora goat, 
which are celebrated throughout the world, are ex¬ 
ports. Though the silk worm is not as much 
cultivated at the present time as it has been in 
the past, yet it is an important business in many 
parts of the country. Merchants come from Eu¬ 
rope to buy the cocoons, and leave a great deal of 
money in the country. The tobacco is very cele¬ 
brated and is exported to all parts of the world. 
Opium is raised and exported, but not so much as 


IOO 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


it was a few years ago. Figs and raisins are very 
famous, and are found in the markets of Europe 
and America. 

The mineral resources of the land are very 
rich. Lead, copper, iron, silver, and coal are found 
in abundance throughout the country. There are 
many sunless caves and mines which some day 
will be penetrated and enrich both the Govern¬ 
ment and the people. 

The agriculture is not scientific. The plains 
are generally unfenced. Though many attempts 
have been made to introduce agricultural improve¬ 
ments and implements, they have failed. But 
I am sure that the time will come when the far¬ 
mers will abandon their patriarchal implements 
and will adopt cheerfully the new system of farm¬ 
ing. One of my esteemed friends, after spending 
several years in America, returned home to Tur¬ 
key with American agricultural implements to 
teach the people the agriculture of the New 
World. I know other gentlemen who are trying 
to follow the example of the gentleman above 
mentioned. 

RAILROADS. 

The railroad system is not fully introduced into 
the country. At present there are five railroads in 
Turkey proper, about 1,800 miles of lines, built 
chiefly by European capitalists. In 1888 the 
French capital, Paris, was connected with the Ot¬ 
toman capital, Constantinople, by rail. So that the 
long and tiresome journey from Paris to Constan- 


THE GOVERNMENT. IOI 

tinople is reduced from eight to two and a half 
days. 

The first railroad runs from Constantinople to 
Adrianople, and on to Sophia. 

The second runs in Cilicia, from Mersina to 
Tarsus, the birthplace of St. Paul, and thence to 
Adana. 

The third runs from Scutari, opposite Constan¬ 
tinople, to Nicomedia, near Nicaea, where the creed 
of Christendom was established by the Oriental 
Fathers. 

The fourth is called the Aiden Railroad, and 
runs from Smyrna towards Ephesus. 

The fifth is known as the Turko-Servian Junc¬ 
tion Railway. 

There is great enthusiasm at the present to es¬ 
tablish other roads in Turkey. Some European 
capitalists are trying to obtain the imperial firman 
for this purpose. Lately an American syndicate 
asked the permission of the Government to con¬ 
struct a railroad from Sivas to Lake Van, near 
the Persian frontier, a distance of 1200 miles. 

The trains are very far from being comfort¬ 
able. There are three classes of cars and three 
grades of tickets. The fare is very high. The 
first-class cars of Turkey do not equal the regular 
passenger cars of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The 
road which runs from Constantinople to Adriano¬ 
ple is about 130 miles; the fare is a little more 
than ten dollars, about seven cents a mile. If we 
take into consideration the general poverty of the 
people, the fere seems to be enormous. Besides, 


/ 


102 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


there are no excursion tickets. There is no com¬ 
petition among the railroad companies, therefore 
no reduction in tickets. There are no smoking 
cars, neither is there any water in the cars, no 
closets, nor even stoves to heat the cars in winter. 

As one of the characteristics of the Oriental peo¬ 
ple is yavash (slowness), so the Oriental trains are 
slow, almost beyond the belief of American peo¬ 
ple. For instance, the train leaves Constantinople 
in the morning at about 7 A. M. and reaches Adri- 
anople in the evening at 8 P. M., thus requiring 
thirteen hours for travelling 130 miles. 

TELEGRAPH SYSTEM. 

There are about 18,000 miles of telegraph lines 
in Turkey. All the principal cities of the empire 
are united thus. Turkey is also in communication 
with other countries. 

POSTAL SYSTEM. 

Turkey is in communication with the world by 
means of the international postal system. We 
have no free delivery of mail, even in the capital. 
In most places the people go to get their mail 
themselves. If the postman brings your letter to 
your door you are obliged to give him five cents. 
On letters weighing fifteen grams the postage is 
five cents. On letters sent to places connected by 
railroads or the sea, three cents. On letters from 
Turkey to America, five cents. 

The postal system in America and in all the 
civilized world is under the control of the Govern 


THE GOVERNMENT. 


103 


ment; in Turkey it is not so. In Constantinople 
and other prominent cities European Powers are 
represented by their postal agents. My mail from 
Turkey comes generally by English or Austrian 
stamps. 

Nobody is permitted to carry a letter, open or 
sealed. If the Government finds a letter on a per¬ 
son it requires him to pay double the postage of 
the letter. But I know that in many places the 
muleteers carry a large portion of the merchants’ 
mail without interference from the Government. 

PASSPORT SYSTEM. 

The passport system is used in Turkey to pre¬ 
vent crime, to secure criminals, and to increase the 
revenue of the Government. The system in itself 
may be good ; but as it is now conducted the evil 
arising therefrom far outweighs the good of the 
system. In America a man can travel throughout 
the country without a passport, while in Turkey, 
in a sparsely populated country, where many of 
the policemen do not know how to read or to 
discriminate a lawful from an unlawful passport, 
nobody is allowed to move for even a short dis¬ 
tance without a passport. The deplorable influ¬ 
ence of this system upon travelling and business 
life is acknowledged by all. To secure a passport 
demands time. Sometimes after a day of hard 
labor a man can obtain one by paying a consider¬ 
able sum of money. While I was writing these 
lines I remembered that the Rev. Mr. Riggs, of 
Marsovan, during his missionary tour through 


104 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


Asia Minor, was confined in Samsoon, not having 
the inevitable tezkire (passport). 

PRISONS. 

There are no houses of correction in Turkey. 
No effort is made for the improvement of the con¬ 
dition of prisoners. No preacher is sent to preach 
to them, and no religious books are distributed 
among them ; so that the prisons, instead of being 
a benefit to the community, become centres of in¬ 
trigues and plots. It would require several John 
Howards at the present time to reform the prisons 
in Turkey. The cells are filthy and unhealthy. 
During the winter there is no fire; extreme cold 
prevails in them. The prisoners guilty of capital 
crimes are loaded with chains. Generally speak¬ 
ing, all classes of prisoners are kept in the same 
prison house. There is no prison uniform. Nei¬ 
ther bed nor bed-clothing is furnished. The pris¬ 
oners wear the clothes in which they are arrested. 
They try to keep themselves warm at night on 
the cold, damp ground by lying together in heaps 
and sleeping pell-mell. 

There is no separate apartment for women. 
The women who are arrested for crime are im¬ 
prisoned in private houses. There is no com¬ 
pulsory labor in the prisons except that of water¬ 
ing and sweeping the streets. Each prisoner is 
allowed to work at his own trade and earn some 
money to buy tobacco, etc. The Government dis¬ 
tributes daily two loaves to each. This has to 
serve for breakfast, dinner, and supper. 


THE GOVERNMENT. 


105 

Privilege is granted to the people to see their 
imprisoned friends. Wives are permitted to carry 
meals to their husbands. 

While years ago capital crimes were punished 
by hanging or decapitation, now it is a rare case 
when a man is hung, this kind of punishment hav¬ 
ing given place to long imprisonments. It is ex¬ 
ceptional that a man is imprisoned for life. It is 
customary to set free many prisoners on festival 
days, on the sultan’s birthday, or on the day of 
his ascension to the throne. 

There are no patrol wagons to assist the police¬ 
man in his work. The criminals are brought to 
the city from the towns and villages under the 
escort of mounted police, the prisoners being com¬ 
pelled to walk with their hands bound behind 
them. But the city criminals walk side by side 
with the policeman, often struggling and quarrel¬ 
ling on the way. If the policeman is stronger 
than his prisoner, he kicks and buffets him till he 
succeeds in dragging him to the door of the prison 
house. 


NEWSPAPERS. 

It is not easy to ascertain when the first paper 
was published in Turkey. It is said that the first 
was issued some fifty years ago by an Arme¬ 
nian in Constantinople. Constantinople is the mo- 
ther of newspapers. The papers published in the 
capital are more than all the others throughout 
the Turkish Empire. Each nation has its own 
national paper. In Constantinople papers are 


io6 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


published in the following languages: English, 
French, Greek, Greco-Turkish, Armenian, Armeno 
Turkish, Turkish, Bulgarian, Arabic, Hebrew, and 
Persian. “Tarik ” (The Way) is the title of the 
Turkish official newspaper. 

Circulation. The circulation is very small. 
There is no paper that has more than 5,000 sub¬ 
scribers. The existence of newspapers in Turkey 
is not regarded as essential to the country, nor are 
they held as a great and important factor in the 
administration of the Government, as they are in 
America. Many people who can read do not care 
for newspapers. There is no home paper. My 
father, who could read and write, died in his 
seventy-third year without reading a single paper 
in all his life! The poor class of people find it 
difficult to pay for a newspaper. The rich people 
are careless about reading, or are not accustomed 
to give money for a newspaper. There are a great 
many people who borrow newspapers from their 
friends, or go to the casinos or barber-shops to 
read. 

Extension of Newspapers. The extent of coun¬ 
try over which they are circulated is very limited. 
The vilayets (provinces) have their local papers, 
which are published under the control of the local 
Government. There are large cities where there 
is not a paper published. There are towns and 
villages which do not see the face of one during 
the whole year. 

Reve 7 iue Stamp. All papers published in the 
capital and in the vilayets bear the revenue stamp. 



BULGARIAN GIRLS. 





' 


• • •> 11 1 








■ 












THE GOVERNMENT. 


107 


This is an extra expense upon the publishers; but 
they are obliged to obey the law of the Govern¬ 
ment. 

The Prices of Newspapers. The price is very 
high. A paper equal in size to the “ Philadelphia 
Times,” sold for one cent, in Constantinople is sold 
for five cents. 

Censorship . There is no freedom of the press. 
The press is strictly under the censorship of the 
Government. The editors are obliged to send a 
copy of their papers to the Government, either be¬ 
fore or directly after publishing them. The pa¬ 
pers are obliged therefore to use conservative lan¬ 
guage in every respect. 

Not very long ago a very curious incident hap¬ 
pened in Constantinople which appeared in the 
columns of the “ Independent ” of New York: 
“ There is a Greek benevolent society in Constan¬ 
tinople which recently had occasion to publish a 
pamphlet on its work, and on the title-page there 
was put a quotation from Paul’s Epistle to the 
Galatians. Very soon after it appeared, a police 
officer came to the printing office and demanded 
of the editor that he should give him information 
as to who this Paul was who had been writing let¬ 
ters to the people of Galata (one of the suburbs of 
Constantinople), as he had orders to get a copy of 
these letters and to bring the aforesaid Paul to 
headquarters. The editor explained that Paul 
could not be brought to headquarters, he was dead; 
but the functionary retorted that his orders were 
to bring Paul, and if he could not bring Paul, to 


io8 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


bring the editor. It was of no use to protest that 
Paul had been in heaven for eighteen hundred 
years, and the editor was taken to headquarters 
and put in prison for several days, until finally the 
Greek patriarch interfered and presented the 
bureau of censorship with a copy of the letter of 
Paul, which he showed to be not to the people of 
Galata, but a province of the ancient Roman Em¬ 
pire. This having been at last made clear, the 
editor was released/’ 

Then what the press means in the civilized 
world must be understood to mean the contrary 
in Turkey. When I was in Constantinople a mes¬ 
sage came from the Censorship for the Rev. Mr. 
Thomson, editor of the Bulgarian missionary 
paper, “ Zornitza.” I read the message to Mr. 
Thomson and informed him that the paper was 
suppressed. What for? It was not mentioned 
in the message. He was very sorry—I was too. 
He could not recall anything written against 
the Government or any of its officers. The sup¬ 
pressing of the paper was a mystery for a long 
time. The paper was suppressed about six 
months against the best efforts of its friends. 

Do you know what was the crime of the paper? 
Because it published an article from a reliable 
correspondent respecting the brigandage about 
Macedonia ! 

I write about this at greater length, because I 
believe that one of the calamities of the country 
comes out of this, that the press is not authorized 
to expose criminals, who are a detriment to thg 


THE GOVERNMENT. 


IO9 

Government. Where there is no free press there 
cannot be public opinion, and where there is no 
public opinion there cannot be public justice. 

How many times the papers are issued from 
the press with one or two blank columns, the arti¬ 
cle being suppressed at the last moment, while 
there was not time, or anything ready, to supply 
the place! 

The chief journals of Europe, the “ Times/’ 
the “ Standard,” the “ Koelnische Zeitung,” the 
“Temps,” the “ Debats, M have their correspond¬ 
ents in Constantinople. 

The Character of the Papers. The papers are 
political and national. There are no religious or 
denominational papers except those published by 
the missionaries. 

Armenian Papers and Periodicals. The oldest 
paper in the Armenian language was published in 
Calcutta, 1795 A. D. The name of the paper was 
“Aztarar” (Advertiser). Since that time about 
one hundred papers and periodicals have been 
published, but most of them have now ceased 
to exist. At the present time about twenty 
national papers and periodicals are published in 
Constantinople, and one in Smyrna. Besides 
these there are papers and periodicals published 
in the following countries: six in Russia, one in 
Venice, in Vienna, in Marseilles, and London. If 
I am not mistaken, there are more Armenian pa¬ 
pers published in Constantinople than of any other 
nationality represented in the Turkish Empire. 

The Manner of Newspaper Selling in Constants 


no 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


nople. Both ends of the great bridge over the 
Golden Horn are occupied by newspaper men, who 
cry all the time and try to sell their papers. One 
cries in the Armenian language, giving the name 
of the paper: “Arevelk!” “ Manzum£ !” Another 
cries in Greek, “ Neologos!” Another one cries 
in Turkish, “ Tarik!” “ Hakikat!” “ Saadet!” An- 
other in English, “ Levant Herald!” while another 
one in French, “ Phare du Bosphore!” A babel 
which is rarely ever heard in any other place in 
the world. 

REFORM IN THE GOVERNMENT. 

The age in which we live may be regarded as 
the completion of a century both in Europe and 
America. Turkey, though surrounded with obsta¬ 
cles both from within and without, yet has not 
been very far from the influence of modern civili¬ 
zation. The treaty between Turkey and the Uni¬ 
ted States and other Powers, and various commer¬ 
cial treaties and other negotiations with foreign 
nations, the introduction of telegraphs, interna¬ 
tional postal arrangements, steam navigation, rail¬ 
roads, street-cars, at least a few lines in the capital, 
press, military tactics, the education of both sexes, 
public tribunals, the acceptance of non-Moslems’ 
testimony in the courthouses, the promulgation of 
the Tanzimat , the adoption of many European cus¬ 
toms and costumes, the abolition of slavery, the 
formal abolition of the torture of criminals in the 
prisons, the repeal of many offensive taxes, the 
extermination of the Janissaries and the Derebeys, 


THE GOVERNMENT. 


Ill 


all these are remarkable changes of the present 
century. The Government, in order to encourage 
manufacturers, issued last year a proclamation 
stating that machinery and tools will be admitted 
free of any duty during a period of fifteen years. 
The religious liberty which is given non-Moslem 
people brings honor to the Government. It was 
not a very long time ago when in Rome Roman- 
catholics alone used to enjoy civil and religious 
privileges. Not long ago the Russian Government 
exiled some Protestant preachers. Last year in 
August a cablegram flashed from St. Petersburg 
over to this side of the Atlantic, stating that “ the 
Minister of Finance intends to tax the Protestant 
churches in the Baltic provinces. These churches 
have hitherto been exempt from taxation. This 
is one of the series of reforms by which the Gov¬ 
ernment intends to thoroughly Russianize the old 
Baltic-German and to diminish the influence of 
the German Protestant clergy.” 

It is true, as it is mentioned in another place, 
that the children of non-Moslem people are not yet 
recognized as equal with the Moslem population; 
that the children of the former are deprived of 
holding any office in the military department. But 
of this they do not complain, because they have 
larger and more prosperous families than the Mos* 
lems. During the late Turko-Russian war, while 
the Moslem children shed their blood by thou¬ 
sands in the battlefield, children of the non-Mos¬ 
lems were safe at home. As soon as the Moslem 
young men begin to be fit for the army the Gov- 


112 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


ernment takes them away and condemns their life 
to military servitude, while on the contrary non- 
Moslem young men are developed in trade and in¬ 
dustry so much as to excite the jealousy of their 
Moslem neighbors. 

There was a time when the distinction between 
accusation and proof was not very necessary in the 
courthouses. When Greece revolted against the 
Turkish Government in 1821, during the reign of 
Sultan Mahmoud, his indignation fell upon the 
unfortunate Greeks of Constantinople. On April 
22, 1821, on Easter morning, the Greek Patriarch 
Gregorius, of Constantinople, was seized at the 
altar while he was offering mass and hung at the 
door of the church. Other ecclesiastics and lay¬ 
men of high rank were executed in a similar way, 
without knowing why they were put to death. 

There were two principal powers at the begin¬ 
ning of this century in Turkey which were great 
obstacles in the way of reform. These were the 
Derebeys (the lords of the valleys) and the Janis¬ 
saries (new soldiers), whose power and influence 
were more firmly fixed at that time than ever. 
Nearly the whole of Asia Minor was divided 
among the Derebeys. The holders of this title 
had under their possession military fiefs, who en¬ 
gaged from time to time in rebellious wars with 
the troops of the Government, from which the poor 
people in the vicinity suffered very much. The 
atrocious authority of those Derebeys weakened 
the Ottoman power considerably. 

But the Janissaries were more formidable than 


THE GOVERNMENT. 


”3 

the former. Sultan Mahmoud II., the grandfather 
of the present sultan, was a person who resolutely 
endeavored to reform his dominion. He put down 
the Derebeys, and thus put an end to feudalism in 
Asia Minor, and also crushed out the irresistible 
power of the Janissaries. Sultan Mahmoud knew 
that his throne was not safe while they existed. 
They were about 50,000 in all, over the country. 
He knew very well the fate of many of his prede¬ 
cessors—Bayazid II. in 1512, Murad III. in 1595, 
Osman II. in 1622, Ibrahim in 1649, Selim III. and 
Mustapha IV. All these Sultans were either de¬ 
throned or strangled by the Janissaries. 

Sultan Mahmoud even knew that he was placed 
on the throne by the power and influence of the 
Janissaries. He foresaw the danger of his king¬ 
dom as well as of his person, therefore he made up 
his mind to deliver his empire from them. 

But there were some other troubles also im¬ 
pending over the Government during this time. 
For example, some of the most important provin¬ 
ces had passed into the hands of Russia. The 
Greeks were in a state of rebellion, and not only 
Lord Byron by his zealous efforts, but the whole 
West, made the Greek cause important. The 
Druses also, in Lebanon, Mohammed Ali in 
Egypt, Ali Pasha in Albania, all threatened the 
empire. Sultan Mahmoud found the Government 
falling. But all these calamities passed away un¬ 
der his administration. He gave however more 
attention to the interior than to the exterior disas¬ 
ters of his throne. The Janissaries, as it is saidt 

8 


Ufa la ttia Orient. 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


114 

were the most dangerous element in the empire, 
and like the Praetorian guards in the ancient Ro¬ 
man Empire, dethroned those with whom they 
were not satisfied and established others in their 
room. 

Sultan Mahmoud in 1826, May 30, issued a 
Hatti-sherif concerning the formation of a new 
victorious army, and a new military uniform was 
distributed among the soldiers of the sultan. 
This proclamation highly excited the Janissaries, 
who were opposed to any change in their costume. 
As soon as the proclamation was published they 
went to see their chieftain and demanded the 
heads of the ministers who helped the promulga¬ 
tion of the firman. But the sultan’s diplomatic 
eyes foreseeing this, he had already gained the 
agreement of the chieftain, who stigmatized his 
associates for their rebellious conduct. The unex¬ 
pected answer of their chieftain brought the Janis¬ 
saries into extreme rage. They began to burn 
the houses of the ministers and destroy everything 
before them. It is said that the sultan’s firmness 
somewhat gave way before these violent actions of 
the rebels, and he was about to conciliate them, 
when the chief in an encouraging tone said to him, 
“ Now or never is the time.” Then the Sanjaki 
Sherif, the holy banner, which was last unrolled 
about half a century before, was displayed at the 
Hippodrome and summoned the rebels to appear 
before it, in token of submission to the sultan’s 
decree. They refused to obey. The ulema , the 
expounders of the faith, called on the people to 


THE GOVERNMENT. 


115 

support their sovereign against the revolters. A 
grand attack began on the rebels, who after mani¬ 
festing a heroic valor found themselves surrounded 
by the mob and new troops, retreated from street 
to street, and finally took refuge in the Hippo¬ 
drome in their barracks. Here their career ended 
by the masked batteries opening upon them. In a 
few hours the Janissaries, who for centuries were 
a terror to European kings and the dread of the 
Ottoman sultans, were annihilated. The same 
bloody scenes took place through the provinces of 
the country, wherever they attempted to show re¬ 
sistance to the Imperial Hatti-sherif, 

Over 10,000 Janissaries were killed throughout 
the land; their famous barracks in the capital 
were destroyed, and the columns of smoke from 
the barracks ascended to the skies over the lofty 
minarets of Constantinople, congratulating the 
sultan and the horrified people on the everlasting 
destruction of this disturbing element of the em¬ 
pire. It may be safely said that the reign of Sul¬ 
tan Mahmoud opened a new page in the history of 
the Ottoman dominion. 

While the friends of Turkey are glad to see 
such remarkable changes during the present cen¬ 
tury, on the other hand they are very sorry indeed 
to see the wretched organization of the depart¬ 
ment of agriculture, the insufficiency of the means 
of transportation, the insecurity of the country dis¬ 
tricts, the vakuf system, by which when a rnan 
dies childless his property is possessed by the 
mosque in the neighborhood, the disproportion of 


n6 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


salaries between the superior and inferior officers, 
the delay of the payment of the salaries to the 
poor soldiers, the appointment of incompetent men 
to office, the destructive policy of free trade, and 
the inevitable duty of two per cent, imposed upon 
export goods, etc., all of which demand immediate 
reform. 


MOHAMMEDANISM. 


uy 


VI. 

MO HA MM ED A NISM. 

Allah Akbar — “ There is no God but God, and Mohammed It 
hi6 prophet.” —The Mohammedan Catechism. 

THE FOUNDER OF MOHAMMEDANISM. 

The founder of Mohammedanism was Moham¬ 
med, the great Arabian prophet from the tribe of 
Koreish, the noblest of Arabia, who was born in 
Mecca, about 570 A. D., and died in 632. Moham¬ 
med not only changed the face of the world, but 
still continues to exercise a powerful influence in 
its history. 

According to the Moslem traditions, as soon as 
Mohammed (the praised one) was born, he fell 
upon his knees, raised his hands and face towards 
heaven, and pronounced, “ Allah is great! There is 
no god but Allah, and I am His prophet.” Upon 
this solemn declaration the sacred fire which for 
centuries had burned on the altar of Zoroaster went 
out, and the iblis (Satan) was cast into the depths of 
the sea, the river Tigris overflowed its banks, and 
a mighty storm, followed by an earthquake, shook 
the foundations of the magnificent palace of Chos- 
roes the Great of Persia, and Mohammed himself 
appeared, surrounded with a light which illumined 
the country round about. 

While Mohammed was still a child his father, 
Abdallah, died. He lost his mother, Emine, when 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


118 

he was six years of age, and fell to the care of 
his relatives. Mohammed, in his twenty-fifth year, 
entered the service of a rich widow, Hadije. He 
was faithful in all his duties, and by his fidelity 
gained Hadijd’s sincere confidence to such a de- 
gree that she offered him her hand in marriage, 
which he accepted. 

Mohammed gradually abandoned his commer¬ 
cial business and devoted himself to religious con¬ 
templations. Retiring into solitude, he brought 
forth a religion adapted to his countrymen, a re¬ 
ligion which finally reconciled all the rival tribes 
of Arabia and did much to reform, refine, and 
elevate their character. 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD IN ARABIA. 

The first article of faith of Mohammedanism is 
the unity of the God-head, which was held in 
Arabia before the appearance of Mohammed by 
some monotheistic sects, and especially by Judaism 
and Christianity. “ The destruction of Jerusalem 
by Titus had caused a general migration of Jews 
from Palestine to Arabia. In the third century 
there were not a few who accepted the Jewish 
faith. As to the Christians, it was possible that 
the first converts made by St. Paul were of Arabic 
blood (Gal. i : 17). Besides this, Theophilus of 
Diu (an island at the entrance of the Arabian 
Gulf), sent by his fellow-citizens as a hostage to 
Constantinople, was there educated and ordained, 
and returning to his own country, successfully 
labored as a missionary in the East Indies. He 


MOHAMMEDANISM. Iig 

extended his labors also to Arabia, where, through 
his preaching, the king of the Homerites in Ye¬ 
men (an Arabian city) became a convert before 
the fifth century.” * 

The Abyssinian conquest also caused a form of 
Christianity to be the dominant religion there be¬ 
fore the Mohammedan era. 

THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY AT THIS TIME. 

The influence of Christianity at that time must 
be considered. The vital and principal doctrines 
of Christianity were obscured by the worship of 
martyrs and by various heresies; relics were re¬ 
garded as essential to Christian worship. Icono- 
clastical and other dogmatical controversies di¬ 
vided and subdivided the Christian communities, 
and destroyed that peace, love, and charity from 
among them which the gospel was given to pro¬ 
mote. Such was the condition of Christianity till 
another religion came and gained the ascendency. 

THE GREAT COMMISSION OF MOHAMMED. 

There are not a few persons who think the 
commission of Mohammed was to erase all traces 
of Christianity from the face of the earth. But 
this is presumption. He gave a place in Paradise 
to the followers of Moses and Christ, although in¬ 
ferior to that which will be possessed by his own. 
It is true he denounced the doctrine of the Trinity 
emphatically, declaring, “ God is one God, the 
eternal God. He begetteth not, neither is he be« 
* Kurtz, “ Church History,” Vol. I, p. 250. 


120 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT, 


gotten, and there is not any one like him/’ H© 
fought against idolatry, discarding all temptations 
and persecutions and plots against his life. His 
desire was to establish a practical religion of 
which God should be the foundation. He taught 
the children of his followers to love their parents, 
and the husbands to love their wives, and sanc¬ 
tioned equal rights between them. He abolished 
the custom of burying alive the female offspring 
as soon as born. He instructed his people to pray, 
to fast, to give alms, to make pilgrimages. He 
forbade the drinking of intoxicating drinks and 
gambling and all use of the flesh of swine as an un¬ 
clean animal. He directed his people to be faith¬ 
ful, just, and kind towards the poor and animals. 
He declared that all Moslems were brethren. 

MOHAMMED ACTS THE PART OF A PROPHET. 

Mohammed was about forty years of age when 
he began to act the part of a prophet. He claimed 
to have been moved to preach a new faith by a spe¬ 
cial divine communication that he had received in 
his solitary cave. When the professed announce¬ 
ment came, “ Oh, Mohammed! of a truth thou art 
the prophet of God and I am His angel Gabriel,” 
like Isaiah he could not believe at first. “Woe is 
me, for I am undone, because I am a man of urn 
clean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of 
unclean lips.” Isa. 6:5. Mohammed, trembling, 
told his vision to his devoted Hadijd, who encour¬ 
aged him by saying, “ Fear not, for joyful tidings 
dost thou bring. I will henceforth regard thee as 


MOHAMMEDANISM. 


121 


the prophet of our nation. Rejoice, Allah will not 
suffer thee to fall to shame. Hast thou not been 
loving to thy kinsfolk, kind to thy neighbors, chari¬ 
table to the poor, faithful to thy word, and ever a 
defender of the truth ?” 

HIS FLIGHT FROM MECCA. 

The most critical period in the life of Moham¬ 
med was when he renounced idolatry and took 
upon himself the office of prophet. 

Upon his declaration of the new faith hostility 
against its author became decided. He was in 
danger. He left Mecca for Medina for refuge 622 
A. D., from which the Mohammedan era Hejira 
begins. He was accepted joyfully by the citizens 
as a prophet and king, with great demonstration 
and pomp. Mohammed proclaimed his doctrine 
until all the tribes of Arabia had joined in the 
solemn profession “La ilah ilia Allah , Mohammed 
Resul-ul-Allah." (There is no god but God, and 
Mohammed is his apostle.) 

THE DOCTRINES OF MOHAMMEDANISM. 

The greatest and most important doctrine of 
Mohammedanism, as has been mentioned, is the 
unity of the God-head. Belief in the existence of 
angels is absolutely required in the Koran, the 
Bible of Mohammedans. Satan was once one of 
the holy angels, but he fell for refusing to pay 
homage to Adam at the command of God. They 
believe in the general resurrection. The right¬ 
eous who fulfil the command of God and break not 


122 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


their contract, who join what God commanded to 
be joined, who fear their Lord and dread an ill ac¬ 
count, and who sincerely strive to please their 
Lord, observe the stated times of prayer, and give 
alms in secret and openly, and who turn away evil 
with good—the reward of these shall be Paradise, 
where the inhabitants shall be wholly taken up 
with joy. They and their wives shall rest in 
shady groves, reclining on magnificent couches. 
There shall they have choice fruit, and shall ob¬ 
tain whatever they desire. Dishes of gold shall be 
carried to them, and cups without handles. 

But they who shall disbelieve and distrust the 
way of God, and hinder men from visiting the 
holy temple of Mecca, and whosoever shall seek 
impiously to profane it, will open their eyes in 
hell, where they shall dwell amid burning winds 
and in scalding water under the shade of a black 
smoke, neither cool nor grateful. They shall have 
garments of fire fitted unto them, boiling waters 
shall be poured on their heads, their bowels shall 
be dissolved thereby, and also their skins, and 
they shall be beaten with maces of iron. 

PRACTICAL DUTIES. 

The practical duties required by the Koran are 
as follows: Prayer. Mohammed used to call prayer 
the pillar of religion. Hence he obliged his fol¬ 
lowers to pray five times every twenty-four hours. 
The first hour is at dawn, the second at noon, the 
third at mid-afternoon, the fourth at sunset, the 
fifth at 9 o’clock P. M. The mosques are opened at; 



O) REV. MR. ROGERS, THE AMERICAN MARTYR MISSIONARY. 
(b) REV. D. KONDAKJIAN, NATIVE PASTOR OF KESSAB. 

) HON. D. OORFALIAN, THE FIRST CHRISTIAN MARTYR OF ADANA. 











» 


















MOHAMMEDANISM. 


123 


all hours during the day for worshippers. The 
call for prayer from the high as well as low mina¬ 
rets is a very remarkable one. “ Most High! 
There is no God but one God, Mohammed is the 
Apostle of God ! Come to prayer! Come to the 
Temple of Life!” is the echo which comes from 
the hundreds of minarets in Constantinople and 
elsewhere five times every day. Mohammedans 
are very careful to offer their prayers. Neither 
business nor journey can keep the devout Mussul¬ 
man from praying at the appointed time. 

A PRAYER. 

The first chapter of the Koran may be regarded 
as a model of a Moslem prayer. “ Praise be to 
God, the Lord of all creatures; the most merciful, 
the King of the day of judgment. Thee do we 
worship, and of thee do we beg assistance. Direct 
us in the right way, in the way of those to whom 
thou hast been gracious; not of those against 
whom thou art incensed, nor those who go astray.” 

Circumcision is practised by Mohammedans 
and is attended by great demonstration and feast¬ 
ing. The circumcision takes place when the child 
is from eight to fifteen years of age. The giving 
of alms is frequently commanded by the Koran. 
Fasting is a day of great importance. The be¬ 
lievers are obliged by the express command of 
their Prophet to fast the whole month of Ramazan. 
Ramazan is the sacred month of commemoration, 
in which they claim the Koran was sent from hea¬ 
ven. 


\ 


124 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


MOSQUES. 

Mosques are generally preceded by a court, sur¬ 
rounded by high walls, planted with trees, and 
refreshed by fountains of water, where Moham¬ 
medans make their ablution before they enter the 
mosque. The courts of the mosques are used for 
many occasions. They are crowded during the 
days of their festivals with children, tart, ice¬ 
cream, and toy sellers, and with many Oriental 
amusements, adapted both for children and adults. 
The courts contain also the seminaries, where 
young men get their education to become teachers 
and preachers. There are other establishments 
also, for example Emarethane , where the students 
get their daily meals and many poor people resort, 
and Timarhane , where the insane are sent for cure. 
From this brief statement it may be easily under¬ 
stood that mosques are great establishments in the 
East. Let us enter the mosque. The external 
part of a mosque may be gorgeous and magnifi¬ 
cent, but internally it is plain, without any picture 
or any other attractive object. There are no hymn- 
books, music, chairs, ushers, or any object of com¬ 
fort such as may be seen in luxuriously Christian 
churches in this country. Here and there some 
texts from the Koran are written in large letters, 
as in our Sunday-school rooms the Biblical texts 
attract the attention of the children or visitors. 

The people usually enter the mosque after 
taking off their shoes at the door, and silently 
stay wherever they prefer to pray. If the mosqua 


MOHAMMEDANISM. 


125 

is not crowded, one may stand where he pleases; 
but in the contrary case each man takes his stand 
at the side of his fellow - believer, whether poor 
or rich, colored or white, friend or enemy. 

The preacher is at the altar. He is without 
any special garment. He leads the prayer, and 
each of his movements or prostrations is observed 
and imitated by hundreds and thousands of wor¬ 
shippers in such a solemn manner as can hardly 
be seen in any other place of worship. 

On Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath, the 
people hear a sermon. The preacher has no notes, 
and does not select any particular text from their 
Bible. He sometimes speaks on theology, but 
generally dwells on the practical duties of religion. 

The people are wide awake and attentive dur¬ 
ing the whole time of worship. I never saw a 
Moslem asleep in the mosque. They do not talk 
with each other. They neither give a sign of salu¬ 
tation nor of recognition. There they bow their 
heads before the Creator and nothing in the world 
can attract their attention. I believe that we 
Christians have something to learn from them. 

THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD. 

There are about 200,000,000 Mohammedans in 
the world, and they are found chiefly in six dis¬ 
tinct sections. 

I. The Turkish Empire, Arabia, and Egypt. 
II. Persia. III. Africa. IV. Central Asia, that is 
Turkestan, Khiva, Bokhara, Afghanistan. V. In¬ 
dia. VI. Java, and certain portions of China, 


126 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


where Mohammedanism has been introduced in 
recent times by the Mohammedan missionary 
efforts. 

THE KORAN. 

Koran is derived from an Arabic word which 
signifies to read. The Mohammedans give it 
other names, as for example, Kelami Kadim (Old 
Word), Kitabi Aziz (Holy Book), Kelami Sheri/ 
(Noble Word). 

The Koran is to the Mohammedan what the 
Bible is to the Christian—a rule of faith and prac¬ 
tice. 

The Koran has been translated from Arabic 
principally into the French, Latin, and English 
languages. The first translation of the Koran 
was into French, in 1647. The translation of Sale 
into English, in 1734, is very valuable. 

As the majority of Christian people in the East 
do not understand the language of the Bible, so 
the majority of Mohammedans in Turkey do not 
understand the language of the Koran. 

There is no prohibition to the Mohammedans 
to read the Koran. Even their children read it 
at home as well as at school. 

As our Bible is not a book written in a century, 
so the Koran was compiled by Abubeker. and re¬ 
vised by Ottoman; the former the second, and the 
latter the third caliph (successor) of the prophet. 

While our Holy Bible is translated into many 
civilized and uncivilized languages, and dis¬ 
tributed among different classes of men, there 
exists among the Mohammedans a strong feeling 


MOHAMMEDANISM. 127 

against the printing, translating, and distributing 
of the Koran. 

MOHAMMEDANS’ BELIEF IN THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE. 

“ Mohammed is believed by his followers to 
have been the last and greatest of prophets and 
apostles. Six of these — namely, Adam, Noah, 
Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed—are be¬ 
lieved each to have received a revealed law, or 
system of religion and morality. That, however, 
which was revealed to Adam was abrogated by 
the next; and each succeeding law or code of 
laws abrogated the preceding; therefore those who 
professed the Jewish religion from the time of 
Moses to that of Jesus were true believers; and 
those who professed the Christian religion until 
the time of Mohammed are held in like manner 
to have been true believers. But the copies of the 
Pentateuch, the Psalms of David (which the Mo¬ 
hammedans also hold to be of divine origin), and 
the Gospels now existing, they believe to have 
been so much altered as to contain very little of 
the true Word of God.” But there are many pas¬ 
sages and narratives in the Koran which are stri¬ 
kingly similar to some in our Bible. Some of 
these are as follows: 


BIBLE. 

In the beginning God 
created the heaven and 
the earth. And God said, 


KORAN. 

It is he who hath creat¬ 
ed the heavens and the 
earth: and whenever he 


128 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


Let there be light, and 
there was light. 

Dust thou art, and unto 
dust shalt thou return. 


Thou shalt give life for 
life, tooth for tooth, foot 
for foot, burning for burn¬ 
ing, wound for wound, 
stripe for stripe. 


Call ye on the name of 
your gods, and I will call 
on the name of the Lord. 
And they cried aloud. 
And it came to pass that 
there was neither voice nor 
any to answer. 

Jesus of Nazareth, a man 
approved of God among 
you by miracles and won¬ 
ders and signs which God 
did by him. 

Take heed that ye do 
not your alms before men 
to be seen of them; other¬ 
wise ye have no reward of 
your Father which is in 
heaven. 


sayeth unto a thing, Be, it 
is. 

Out of the ground have 
we created you, and to the 
same will we cause you to 
return. 

We have therein com¬ 
manded them that they 
should give life for life, and 
eye for eye, and nose for 
nose, and ear for ear, and 
tooth for tooth, and that 
wounds should be punished 
by retaliation. 

And it shall be said unto 
the idolaters, Call now upon 
those whom ye have asso¬ 
ciated with God: and they 
shall call upon them, but 
they shall not answer. 

We gave unto Jesus, the 
Son of Mary, manifest signs, 
and strengthened him with 
the Holy Spirit. 

Make not your alms of 
none effect by reproaching 
or mischief; as he that lay- 
eth out what he hath, to 
appear unto men to give 
alms. 


MOHAMMEDANISM. 


129 


They said therefore unto 
him, What sign showest 
thou then, that we may see 
and believe thee ? 

But of that day and that 
hour knoweth no man: no, 
not the angels which are in 
heaven, neither the Son, 
but the Father. 


But, beloved, be not ig¬ 
norant of this one thing, 
that one day is with the 
Lord as a thousand years, 
and a thousand years as 
one day. 

For behold I create new 
heavens and a new earth. 
We look for new heavens 
and a new earth. I will 
cause you to come up out 
of your graves. And every 
man shall receive his own 
reward according to his 
own labor. 


The infidels say, Unless 
some sign be sent down un¬ 
to him from his Lord, we 
will not believe. 

They will ask thee con¬ 
cerning the last hour, at 
what time its coming is 
fixed. Answer, Verily, the 
knowledge thereof is with 
my Lord; none shall de¬ 
clare the fixed time thereof 
except he. 

But God will not fail to 
perform what he hath 
threatened: and verily one 
day with the Lord is as 
a thousand years of those 
which ye compute. 

The day will come when 
the earth shall be changed 
into another earth, and the 
heavens into other heav¬ 
ens ; and men shall come 
forth from their graves to 
appear before the only, the 
mighty God, that God may 
reward every soul accord¬ 
ing to what it shall have 
deserved. 


The following passage from the Koran illus> 
trates the correspondence of very notable histori- 

9 


Lifts In the Orient. 


130 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


cal facts which are found in the first chapter of 
Luke’s Gospel: 

“ Zacharias called on his Lord and said, Lord, 
give me from thee a good offspring, for thou art 
the hearer of prayer. And the angels called to 
him while he stood praying in the chamber, say¬ 
ing, Verily, God promiseth thee a son, named 
John, who shall bear witness to the word which 
cometh from God; an honorable person, chaste, 
and one of the righteous prophets. He answered, 
Lord, how shall I have a son, when old age hath 
overtaken me, and my wife is barren ? The angel 
said, God doth that which he pleaseth. Zacharias 
answered, Lord, give me a sign. The angel said, 
Thy sign shall be that thou shalt speak unto no 
man for three days otherwise than by gesture.” 

“And when the angels said, O Mary, verily 
God hath chosen thee above all the women of the 
world: when the angels said, O Mary, verily God 
sendeth thee good tidings, that thou shalt bear 
the Word proceeding from himself: his name shall 
be Christ Jesus, the Son of Mary, honorable in 
this world and in the world to come, and one of 
those who approach near to the presence of God. 
She answered, Lord, how shall I have a son, since 
a man hath not touched me ? The angel said, So 
God createth that which he pleaseth. When he 
decreeth a thing, he only saith unto it, Be, and it 
is. God shall teach him the Scripture and wis¬ 
dom and the law and the gospel; and he shall 
appoint him his apostle to the children of Israel.” 

The Mohammedans in Turkey are orthodox 


MOHAMMEDANISM. 


131 

and regard the Persians as schismatics. According 
to the former, Abubeker, Omar, and Osman were 
the lawful successors of Mohammed. According 
to the latter, Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet, was 
the next in succession. They show hatred to one 
another in many respects. For example, the 
Sunni , or orthodox Moslems, honor the green color 
by elevating it to their turbans; the Shiahs , on the 
contrary, dishonor the same color by putting it on 
their shoes and trousers. The former cries in the 
time of need, “ O God ! O God!” the latter, “ O Ali f 
O Ali!” They do not persecute each other. 


132 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


VII. 

CONS TA NTINOPLE . 


“ To see Rome and die is merely gratuitous suicide when the 
other Rome, the beautiful city of Constantine, remains to be vis¬ 
ited.”— Lane-Poole. 

FOUNDATION. 

Constantinople, the first Christian capital, 
was founded about 660 B. C. The first immigrants 
were some Greek families from Megara, who built 
the city and called it Byzantium. Like other 
Greek cities in that region it submitted to the Per¬ 
sian power; but at the defeat of Xerxes it became 
a member of the Athenian confederacy. The city 
resisted the attack of Philip of Macedon and others, 
but finally it was obliged to submit to the domin¬ 
ion of Rome. 


A CHRISTIAN CAPITAL. 

In 323 A. D. Constantine the Great became 
sole emperor of Rome. He embraced the Chris¬ 
tian faith. Desiring to defend the capital of his 
empire against the attacks of barbarous tribes, he 
determined to found a new capital in the east, and 
made choice of Byzantium as the spot. He called 
it New Rome, but his court and people called it 
after his name, the “City of Constantine,” Con- 
stantinopolis. 


CONSTANTINOPLE. 


133 


A MOHAMMEDAN CAPITAL. 

From 330 A. D. to 1453 Constantinople was 
the capital of Christian kings. Before the final fall 
of the city it was captured by Latin conquerors, at 
the beginning of the thirteenth century, during 
the Fourth Crusade, when Innocent III. was Pope 
of Rome. The city was taken by storm under the 
leadership of the old blind Dandolo. Its destruc¬ 
tion by the Crusaders was so great that a late vis¬ 
itor to Constantinople asked himself, “ What! is 
this deserted waste all that remains of the Hippo¬ 
drome, which was the centre of the popular life of 
New Rome? Was it really on this spot that the 
great events of Byzantine history were enacted? 
Where is the famous Forum surrounded on four 
sides with porticos, enriched with statues, the 
spoils of ancient Greece? Where is the circular 
Forum of Constantine, peopled with statues and 
divinities ? Where is the porphyry column on the 
summit of which Apollo, torn from his temple in 
Phrygian Heliopolis, his head crowned with gold¬ 
en rays, consented to be renamed and to represent 
the person of the Christian founder of the city? 
Where is that imperial palace which was a town of 
itself, and from whose windows the autocrat could 
see his fleets sailing forth to the conquest of Italy, 
Asia, and Africa, and the vessels of his merchants 
entering the Golden Horn laden with the riches 
of distant lands ? Where are those thousands of 
statues that were brought from the east and from 
the west, from Athens and from Sicily, from Chal- 


134 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


daea and from Antioch, from Crete and from 
Rhodes, to augment the splendor of the parade of 
the Byzantine emperor?” 

The Latins ruled over the city about sixty 
years; after which it again came into possession 
of the Greeks. But the Latins hastened the final 
fall of Constantinople, the city being defended by 
the noble and brave Emperor Constantine with his 
6,000 soldiers against the 200,000 of Mohammed 
II. The emperor fell with his capital, after fifty, 
three days of siege, in 1453. On that day the Cres¬ 
cent was substituted for the Cross, and the muezzin 
declared that the capital, the pride of Christendom, 
belonged to another nation and to another creed. 

THE SITUATION OF THE CITY. 

The geographical position of Constantinople is 
very peculiar. If you will look at the map you 
will see what a remarkable position it occupies. 
The city is on the great highway which connects 
the Black Sea with the Mediterranean, and sepa¬ 
rates Europe from Asia. Thus it commands at 
once two seas and two continents. Its situation 
seems preeminently to be fitted for the seat of a 
universal empire. There is no other such site in 
the world for an imperial capital. Speaking geo¬ 
graphically, London, Berlin, Paris, Rome, Vienna 
are subordinate to Constantinople. No other 
city can be compared with this for its natural 
beauty. Says Lamartine about Constantinople, 
“ It is here that God and man, nature and art, have 
placed or created in concert the most wonderful 


CONSTANTINOPLE. 


135 


view which the human eye can contemplate on 
earth. I uttered an exclamation of involuntary 
admiration and forgot for ever the Gulf of Naples 
and all its enchantments. Comparing anything to 
this magnificent and superb prospect, taken as a 
whole, is to outrage the creation.” 

NATURAL BEAUTY. 

The strong language of James Bryce: “ Let 
me try to tell you what nature has done for Con¬ 
stantinople. She has given it the bluest and clear¬ 
est sea that can be imagined, and vaulted over it 
the most exquisitely bright yet tender sky, full of 
delicious light, that would be dazzling if it were 
not so soft. She has drawn the contour of the 
shores and hills as if with an artist’s hand: the 
sweeping reaches of the Bosphorus, the graceful 
curve of the Golden Horn, the soft slope of the 
olive-clad heights behind Scutari, the sharp, bold 
outline of the rocky isles that rise from the surface 
of the Sea of Marmora; and far away on the south¬ 
eastern horizon she has raised into heaven the 
noble summit of the Mysian Olympus, whose 
snows blush rose-red under the morning sun. 
The sea seems to pervade everything; turn which 
way you will, it meets you, till you get confused 
among its winding arms. Its glittering bosom is 
covered with vessels of every size and style. The 
nights, however, are often still and serene, and 
then, under the brilliant moon, the city seems to 
lie engirt by a flood of molten silver.” 

The climate of the city is very healthy. With 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


136 

rare exceptions there is always a soft wind blow¬ 
ing across it. The city and suburbs are furnished 
with wholesome water. During the summer many 
come from Europe, even from America, to spend a 
few weeks here. 

The antiquarians who visit Constantinople 
from the West are anxious to satisfy their curi¬ 
osity with the expectation of seeing many anti¬ 
quities. Indeed the city, having been for centuries 
the treasury of the East, and having a remarkable 
history, ought to have the best museums in the 
civilized world. But it is not so. Many Western 
explorors and travellers came over during the last 
half-century and took away quite a number of 
valuable antiquities, with which they decorated 
the museums of their own countries. This at¬ 
tracted the attention of the Government, which 
ordered the collection of antiquities wherever they 
may be found in the empire and the placing of 
them in the museum of Constantinople. At pres¬ 
ent, under the sagacious auspices of Hamdi Bey, 
there are many fragments which belong to the an¬ 
cient centuries, but these unfortunately do not 
satisfy the curiosity of the Western traveller. 

There are some ancient relics yet standing, 
though in a very dilapidated condition: the brazen 
serpent of Apollo in the Hippodrome, and some 
obelisks, the burnt column of Constantine, the 
seven towers, the walls, and the large cistern 
which was used as a reservoir to supply the peo¬ 
ple with water during the siege of the city. But 
there are many things in Constantinople which 


CONSTANTINOPLE. 


137 


give great satisfaction to visitors. The city is 
not entirely without its ancient and modem 
splendor: the natural beauty of its site, its trees 
of different kinds, its mosques with their lofty 
minarets and noble domes, its churches, palaces, 
towers, castles, and villas on both sides of the 
Bosphorus, its fine plantations, gardens, and fanci¬ 
ful Oriental houses and cottages, present a scene 
of unsurpassed attractiveness. 

The city consists of three main divisions. 
First, Constantinople proper, lying between the 
Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmora. Secondly, 
over against Constantinople proper, on the other 
side of the Golden Horn, is Galata. The third is 
in Asia, on the further side of the Bosphorus, op¬ 
posite both Constantinople proper and Galata, 
called Scutari. 

ST. SOPHIA. 

The largest and most attractive buildings of 
the city are the palaces of the sultans, the 
mosques, the houses of the ambassadors, baths, 
old khans, Sublime Porte, bazaars, the barracks, 
and the towers. The mosque of St. Sophia, which 
was a Christian temple for about ten centuries, is 
a building which is very interesting and magnifi¬ 
cent. St. Sophia is a thousand years older than St. 
Peter’s at Rome — the oldest cathedral on the 
earth, and one of the oldest monuments of Chris¬ 
tianity. It has no cathedral tower, but there are 
four minarets rising skyward, as sentinels guarding 
its noble dome, which still remains the wonder and 
admiration of the world. Many pagan temples 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


138 

were spoiled to decorate this temple of Christ. 
When the Emperor Justinian finished the temple, 
it was opened on Christmas day in the year 548. 
The emperor, in his great exultation, exclaimed 
proudly, “ Solomon ! I have surpassed thee!” 

CONSTANTINOPLE A COSMOPOLITAN CITY. 

Constantinople is a cosmopolitan city, perhaps 
the fifth largest city on the earth, embracing 
nearly 1,000,000 population from every part of the 
country. The majority are Turks; then come 
the Armenians, the Greeks, etc. If you stand on 
the bridge which connects Constantinople proper 
with Galata, you will see people from every part 
of the world, speaking different languages, wear¬ 
ing all varieties of costume, and saluting each 
other in various styles. The city, being admira¬ 
bly located for commercial and business life, at¬ 
tracts people from every part of the world : Euro¬ 
peans, Asiatics, Africans, as well as Americans, 
meet here. 

The city being the seat of the sultan, here 
may be found the ecclesiastical and national repre¬ 
sentatives of the empire. The city is the seat of 
the Cheich ul Islam (the Elder of Islam) of Mo¬ 
hammedans, the Badriarch (Patriarch) of the Ar¬ 
menians, the Patriarch of the Greeks, the Exarch 
of the Bulgarians, the Azkabed (the Chief of the 
Nation) of the Protestant Armenians, the Monsi¬ 
gnore of the Catholic Armenians, and the Khaham- 
bashi (High-Priest) of the Jews. There are 379 
mosques and 145 Christian churches in the city; 


CONSTANTINOPLE. 


! 39 

of these last, 50 belong to the Greek Orthodox 
Church, 39 are Armenian, 26 are Roman-catholic, 
14 are Protestant chapels, 3 are Greek Catholic, 
and one Bulgarian church. 

The city is also the seat of Oriental culture 
and civilization. Its influence is felt throughout 
the country. 

THE SULTAN’S PUBLIC PRAYER. 

When I was in Washington, in 1887, there 
were with me one Monday morning about a hun¬ 
dred theological students from different semina¬ 
ries in the United States. We went all together 
to the White House to visit the President of the 
United States. When we entered the East Room 
I saw some gentlemen and ladies, even babies in 
the arms of their mothers, who came for the same 
purpose. The sight was a striking one and be¬ 
yond the imagination of an Oriental man, who 
had never dreamed of shaking the hand of his 
monarch. Oh how proud was I when I shook the 
hand of the President of the United States of 
America! There is no such reception-room in 
Yildiz palace, where the present sultan lives. 
The reception-room of the palace is not for the 
common people, but for their representatives, the 
ministers of the empire and foreign Governments. 

Naturally the people of Constantinople, and 
those who visit the city, desire to see the royal 
face of the sultan. There is an opportunity once 
a week, on Fridays, to see the sultan when he is 
on his way to a mosque to offer his prayers, about 


140 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


two o’clock p. M. The streets through which he 
will pass, which are usually filthy, are watered 
and swept a few hours before the time of his 
passage, and filled with troops and by multitudes 
on foot, in carriages, and on horseback. A cordon 
of troops is drawn around the mosque to keep the 
multitude from approaching very near. Several 
thousand soldiers guard the sides of the road 
from the palace to the mosque, between which the 
sultan with his staff and body-guard pass on the 
way to prayer. The sultan comes generally in an 
elegant open carriage, sometimes on a splendidly- 
caparisoned horse. The troops, accompanied by 
bands of music, come from all parts of the city, 
bearing their regimental flags. 

The Sultan enters the mosque. He remains 
about forty minutes there, then he comes out and 
returns to the palace. The soldiers shout, “ The 
sultan ! let him live for ever!” 

Some of the titles of the sultan are as follows: 
“ Refuge of the world,” “ King of kings,” “Pontiff 
of the Mohammedans,” “ King of the Sovereigns 
of the Universe.” 

THE BAZAAR AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 

The bazaar is a place which every traveller 
must visit. It is covered overhead and in many 
places arched over with stone in a substantial 
manner. It is an enormous building, a labyrinth, 
in which the dealers sit, some in their stalls, some 
cross-legged with their wares piled up around 
them so that they can reach them easily without 


CONSTANTINOPLE. 


HI 

rising. You will find the riches of the Orient in 
this labyrinth. Here as far as the eye can reach 
are seen ranges of shops filled with slippers and 
shoes of various kinds. Here are exposed the 
richest of Persian carpets. At one place are sec- 
ond-hand books and clothes, while at another a 
long line of polished arms flash upon the eye. 
Each street is exclusively occupied by a particular 
branch of trade or artisans. So jewelry, furs, caps, 
dry-goods, blankets, and furniture are separately 
exposed for sale. Here the old Turkish women 
stand and try to sell their embroideries, a sight 
and custom which you cannot see out of the ba¬ 
zaar. The crowds which throng the bazaar are so 
dense that it is with difficulty that you can get 
out. There are a great many auctioneers, who 
run about holding up articles for sale and crying 
out the price at the top of their voices. The deal¬ 
ers are Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Per¬ 
sians. The buyers are of various nationalities. 
Here the venders of fruits, ice-cream, bread, cheese, 
ice-water, lemonade, coffee, tea, etc., run about 
shouting violently. Here you come to a little 
cafe where groups of men may be seen sitting 
cross-legged or on the puny stalls, with their wa¬ 
ter-pipes, long pipes, and cigarettes, chatting in 
half a dozen languages. There you see a Turkish 
barber shaving the crown of a Mussulman. Over 
yonder the blind beggars clad in their rags are 
shrieking at the top of their voices. 

No dealer sleeps within the walls of the ba¬ 
zaar. It is closed at sunset by more than twenty 


142 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


large gates, which lead into as many different 
streets. In the morning the bazaar is opened, the 
dealers rush in, and every person occupies his 
seat in his shop. 

FIRE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 

If there is anything the people fear at Con¬ 
stantinople more than another it is fire. And in¬ 
deed the history of the city shows clearly how 
much damage has been done by fire. There was 
one at Pera, above Galata, in 1870, at which it is 
said, two-thirds of the town was destroyed; nine 
thousand houses were burned and two thousand 
people were killed. 

There is no fire-bell rung on the occasion of a 
fire. The watchmen in the towers give the signal 
at night by hanging out a red light and indicate 
the direction by placing the light on the side of 
the tower nearest the fire. When this light is 
seen the alarm is given to the city by the firing 
of seven cannons. The street watchmen take up 
the alarm and strike on the rough pavement with 
their heavy iron-ferruled clubs several times; then 
they begin to cry at the top of their voices, “ Yan- 
gun var! yangun var!” (Fire! fire!) If the fire 
seems very dangerous, the bells of the churches 
begin to ring, and not only the people of the 
neighborhood, but the whole city is aroused by 
these numerous alarms. If you add to these 
alarms the howling and the barking of innumer¬ 
able dogs, sleep becomes quite impossible. 

There are no elegant fire engines or trained 


CONSTANTINOPLE. 


M3 


firemen as in America. The firemen, who are 
chiefly porters and boatmen, are stout and strong-, 
but their instruments are small and inefficient to 
quench the flames. The puny pumps are carried 
on the shoulders of the firemen, who reach the 
scene of the fire exhausted and hence are unfit to 
work. It is very curious to see the firemen with 
their pumps on their shoulders, some of them 
without hats, others without shoes, running rapidly 
towards the place of the fire, violently destroying 
everything before them, and crying, “ Make way! 
Make way ! fire ! fire! ” When they reach the fire' 
they cry, “Soo! Soo! ” (Water! Water!) but 
where is the water? The houses are opened and 
the people carry water in small buckets and fill 
the pump, and the firemen begin their work. The 
slow work seems better adapted to nourish the 
flames than to quench them. 

THE DOGS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 

The dogs of the city attract the special atten¬ 
tion of every visitor. I do not believe that there 
is another city in the world where there is such an 
immense crowd of dogs. Every street and avenue 
of Constantinople swarms with them. A man 
must be careful in walking the street not to stum¬ 
ble over a dog. It is the custom in Constantino¬ 
ple for men and women to give way to dogs and 
not the dogs to them. The dogs have their own 
streets and headquarters, which they guard with 
perfect fidelity, and no dog is allowed to trespass 
beyond the limit of his quarter. If one of them 


144 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


attempts to do so, all the dogs of the quarter come 
together, surround the stranger, and punish him, 
and by so doing they settle the territorial dispute. 
If some one happens to pass carelessly swinging a 
cane, or on horseback, or who is dressed in an old 
garb, the whole company of dogs rush furiously 
into the battlefield. Here is one of the greatest 
panoramas which is always open to European 
visitors. Large, small, strong, weak, broken-leg¬ 
ged, hairless, tailless, earless, toothless, and eyeless 
dogs all come together at the call of their canine 
captain. The scene is terrible. A European stran¬ 
ger can forget many things that he has seen in the 
city, but the fight of the dogs of Constantinople he 
can never forget. 

Rich Mussulmans leave some money before 
their death to support these poor creatures. One 
may meet in the mornings a stout Turk carrying 
a large basket on his back, filled with loaves of 
bread, to give the regular breakfast to these poor 
animals, who come by hundreds to satisfy them¬ 
selves. In the recent number of the “ Avedaper" 
appeared the following extract: “ Turkish newspa¬ 
pers of the capital announced that recently, near 
the village of Makri, three persons were bitten by 
a mad dog; two of them died, and it is said that 
the third person is dangerously sick.” There is 
no more favorable city for Dr. Pasteur to practise 
his new cure of hydrophobia than the city of Con 
stantinople. 


CONSTANTINOPLE. 


H 5 


STREETS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 

The streets are very narrow and zig-zag and 
badly paved; many streets are without any side¬ 
walk. The projecting rocks are dangerous ob¬ 
stacles in the path. There are few streets in Con¬ 
stantinople proper which are in good condition, 
but the best are found in Pera, above Galata, 
where the population is composed chiefly of Eu¬ 
ropeans and the wealthiest of the city. It is not 
strange to see men, porters, vehicles, carriages, 
dogs, pack-horses, mules, asses, and bullock-carts 
jolt and rumble along together in the middle of 
the road. 

There are a few lines of street cars, which are 
very uncomfortable. The car is divided in the 
middle by a thick curtain, to prevent the men 
from looking upon the faces of the Turkish 
women. The men enter one end of the car, and 
the women must enter the other. The streets be¬ 
ing zig-zag, in order to prevent any danger there 
are men appointed by the company whose busi¬ 
ness it is to run before the street cars and give 
caution to the public by the horn which they blow 
constantly, thus adding their noise to the babel 
which already exists. 

PORTERS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 

Varda ! (Make way!) is one of the most popu¬ 
lar cries in Constantinople. You hear it on the 
land as well as on the waters of the city. It is the 
porter’s watchword as well as the boatman’s. 

Life In the Orient. I O 


146 " LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 

The porters {hammals) are the most busy men 
in the capital. Without them Constantinople could 
not exist. Their number is about 20,000. They 
do the work done by horses and strong express 
wagons in the cities of America. For example, 
if you go to Constantinople, you will be obliged 
first to stop at the Custom House. After giving 
a little bakshish (present) to the officers, you are 
then ready to go to a hotel or to the house of a 
friend. There are no boarding-houses in Turkey. 
You wait for an express wagon to come to move 
your baggage, and when it arrives you find the 
wagon of Constantinople is a hammal. A large 
hump on his back enables him to move your trunks, 
no matter how large or how heavy they are. If 
the burden is very heavy and beyond the power 
of two or three hammals to carry, there come a 
dozen stout hammals wearing knee-breeches, bear¬ 
ing long and strong poles, who carry hogsheads, 
boxes, trunks, bales, stones, and burdens of all 
kinds, slung in the middle of the two poles, trot¬ 
ting along through the dense crowd of the city, 
crying all the way the inevitable Varda ! Varda ! 

DERVISHES IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 

Among the Mohammedans there is a sect 
called the Dervishes. Of these some are called 
Whirling and some Howling Dervishes. They 
are found generally in large cities and are regard¬ 
ed in the same light that monks are held in Chris¬ 
tian countries. Whirling or Dancing Dervishes 
take their name from their peculiar religious exer- 


CONSTANTINOPLE. 


*47 

cises, in which they whirl themselves around a 
circle. The exercise is exhibited every Friday in 
their halls. Many persons of every nationality go 
to see these wonderful dervishes. The hall or 
place of worship is a large circular room, with an 
arched roof, and galleries for the spectators extend 
all around on the same floor. The dervishes are 
clothed or enveloped in plain cloaks and wear tall, 
drab colored hats. The pipe and tambourine call 
the dervishes to worship, and with their heads 
bowed down they walk slowly, several times, 
around the hall. The chief gives a signal to be¬ 
gin the service, when all the dervishes arrange 
themselves around the hall in their respective 
places, and slowly casting off their cloaks, appear 
in a dancing costume, that is, a plain suit of white 
cotton, consisting of petticoats and a kind of round¬ 
abouts, fastened at one side by a sash. Slowly and 
gracefully the dervishes begin to whirl. The 
arms are extended, the hands thrown out, the feet 
together, and round and round they go with 
sweeping petticoats, with their long beards, pale 
faces, and downcast eyes. There is no noise ex¬ 
cept the noise of the pipe and tambourine which 
regulate their dancing movements. They con¬ 
tinue this about twenty-five minutes without ces¬ 
sation, in a manner which excites your wonder at 
their ability to whirl so long. At last the whirl¬ 
ing is concluded. The dervishes, after bowing 
before their chief, slowly retire to their own 
places. 


148 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


HOWLING DERVISHES. 

The exhibitions of these dervishes are very ex. 
citing. Their superior or chief takes his seat on 
one side; soon a few come and begin their pros¬ 
trations and prayers. The number is increased to 
a couple of dozen, then they begin the service. 
At first their motion is slow, but by-and-by they 
begin to scream so violently that it is difficult to 
recognize them as human beings. The name of 
God is frequently used—“ Allahoo! Allahoo /” 
They cry so wildly that their voices lose all sem¬ 
blance of human voices. Streams of sweat roll 
down their faces, their hands hang from their 
shoulders, their eyes roll, their tongues hang out 
while they gasp for breath, their chins fall loosely 
on their breasts, and all become motionless. After 
a few minutes of profound silence a low sobbing 
is heard around the hall of worship; gradually it 
swells and spreads around till the whole crowd 
of dervishes are sobbing, and the sobs deepen into 
a low cry, and the low cry into a wild burst of 
grief. From every eye the big tears roll down, 
and the faces and breasts of the sobbing crowd are 
wet with weeping. Reader, you can imagine no 
human beings under the whole heavens like these 
poor ignorant worshippers. 

TURKISH BATHS. 

If the Western world boasts of her grand and 
magnificent buildings, such as those in Washing¬ 
ton, Philadelphia, and New York, Turkey also 


CONSTANTINOPLE. 


149 


boasts of her baths, which are well known 
throughout the world. Baths are some of the 
greatest institutions in the Turkish Empire. In 
the large cities may be found from twenty to fifty 
public baths for both sexes. Men spend a few 
hours, while the women spend the whole day in 
the baths. Preparations are made by the women 
to have a good repast in the bath. Men go to the 
bath in their ordinary dress, while the women go 
in their best clothes. 

The Exterior Bath . Baths are divided into two 
parts—the cold or exterior, and the warm or in¬ 
terior. The exterior part is paved with marble, 
ornamented with a bubbling fountain of cold 
water which stands in the middle of the room, and 
from which the customers now and then dip up 
water to quench their thirst. Around this room 
there are elevated platforms upon which lie the 
beds of the customers, where they disrobe them¬ 
selves before entering the interior bath. Upon 
entering the interior bath, a pair of wooden clogs 
are put on to avoid the heat of the marble pave¬ 
ment, which is too hot to be touched with bare 
feet. The women take their towels with them, 
while towels are supplied for the men in the 
bath. 

The baths which belong to the men are more 
fashionable and more Oriental than those of the 
women. There are neither beds nor private 
dressing-rooms in the baths belonging to the wo¬ 
men. Those gentlemen who can give a few cents 
bakshish can procure private dressing-rooms, but 


150 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


generally the people disrobe themselves in 
public. 

In the exterior everything is calm. Here is a 
Christian smoking in his bed; there in the corner 
is a Mohammedan praying on the carpet, a little 
beyond another, with a beard reaching to his mid¬ 
dle, reading the Koran, while near by is a Jew 
performing his toilet; and another puts his bath 
money upon the small looking - glass and gives 
bakshish to the half-naked servants who eagerly 
surround him. 

The Interior Bath. The interior is also paved 
with marble. Here there are fountains attached 
to the walls around. The fountains furnish cold 
and hot water. Under these small fountains there 
are stone basins or caldrons about fifteen inches 
wide and ten inches deep. The caldrons are 
filled with water, and the bather sits on the mar¬ 
ble floor and washes himself, taking water in a 
small vessel and pouring it on him. The floor is 
furrowed with little channels for carrying off the 
water which has been used. The clouds of steam 
which arise from the basins hang in the atmosphere. 
The walls are reeking with a warm sweat. High 
overhead is a concave ceiling pierced with round 
holes, which are the only windows of the interior. 

Here some scrape with a razor a bald crown; 
there some rub down the arms and legs of a pros¬ 
trate bather; some of the bathers are engaged in 
washing themselves, pouring water from head to 
foot; and some, not being able to remain in, are 
carried out in a half-suffocated condition. 


SOCIAL LIFE. 


151 


VIII. 

SOCIAL LIFE. 

ENGAGEMENT AND MARRIAGE. 

The custom of engagement and marriage is 
different among tlie nationalities in Turkey. A 
custom which prevails among many of the Mo¬ 
hammedans is that the young man goes to the 
house of the girl, and the face of the girl is un¬ 
covered. Her father is present. She offers to the 
gentleman coffee and waits for the empty cup. 
The young man drinks his coffee and returns the 
cup, saying, “God reward you, beautiful child.” 
She retires without saying a word. If she is 
pleased with the young man she sends a ring the 
next day to the father. At the end of eight days 
the wedding takes place. The friends, neighbors, 
and relatives bring their gifts, according to their 
circumstances, and furnish the household of the 
couple. During the wedding feast the men oc¬ 
cupy the ground floor and the women the floor 
above. 

Another custom which is prevalent among the 
Mussulmans in Turkey is that as soon as the boy 
attains the marriageable age, not he, but his pa¬ 
rents, take care to find for him a wife. The mo¬ 
ther is more active and earnest in the matter than 
the father. She is the one who visits the houses of 
her neighbors and relatives. When she finds a 


152 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


suitable one she reports the fact to the father. If 
they agree among themselves about her, she pays a 
visit to the mother of the girl and reveals her object, 
in the absence of the girl. After a few hours’ con¬ 
versation the mother of the girl promises to talk 
about the proposal to her husband. If the propo¬ 
sition is favorable in the sight of the father, then 
the terms of the contract and dowry are arranged 
and the wedding day set. 

It may be interesting to state here that the pa¬ 
rents may betroth their daughter to whom they 
please, and give her in marriage without her con¬ 
sent if she be not arrived at the legal age (seven¬ 
teen years). 

The bridegroom can scarcely ever obtain a 
glance at the features of his bride until marriage, 
unless she belongs to the lower classes of society, 
in which case it is not very difficult to see her 
face. 

When a Mohammedan woman is about to 
marry, she should have a deputy settle the con¬ 
tract with her proposed husband. If she is under 
legal age this is absolutely necessary. In this case 
her father, if living—if he is dead, her nearest 
adult male relative—performs the office of deputy. 
The contract between her and her proposed hus¬ 
band is her best protection. When I think how 
meanly many of the Moslem women are treated, 
this contract deserves admiration. It is a dowry 
(money), which is promised by her proposed hus¬ 
band to be paid in case he divorces her against her 
consent, or in case of her husband’s death. 


SOCIAL LIFE. 


153 


A very striking feature of the marriage cere¬ 
mony is that the bride does not appear in the 
mosque with the bridegroom. The bride is taken 
from her home by the relatives and friends of the 
bridegroom with great pomp. The procession is 
composed of carriages full of women, and the car¬ 
riage of the bride, which is closed all around, and 
of men on their horses and the musicians on foot. 
The bride waits in the house of the bridegroom, 
while the latter goes to the mosque to offer the 
prayer. He returns home with the procession 
and leaves his friends and goes to see his bride, 
perhaps for the first time. He returns after a 
few minutes to his friends, who are anxious to 
know whether he is satisfied with his bride or not. 
The bridegroom sits for a considerable time with 
his friends, talking and smoking with them, and 
his friends pat him on the shoulder for his good 
luck and leave him alone. 

Perhaps the reader will think that it is time 
now for the bridegroom to take his bride and go to 
some place to spend their honeymoon. There is 
no such custom in the East. The paternal roof is 
the only recognized place for them to spend their 
honeymoon. 

POLYGAMY AMONG MOHAMMEDANS. 

Polygamy is less prevalent among the Moham¬ 
medans now than formerly. The number of wives 
is limited to four, but the number of concubines, 
not being limited, is left to the pecuniary resources 
of the head of the family. At present many of 


154 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


the Mohammedans in Turkey have but one wife, 
but it is also true that many of them have more 
than one. A Mohammedan in the East not onlv 

j 

looks upon polygamy as right and proper, but he 
considers it a religious duty. He has the records 
and examples of Oriental patriarchs before him as 
well as the passage of the Koran, “ Take in mar¬ 
riage of such other women as please you two or 
three or four, and not more.” A Mussulman can 
keep several wives, either under the same roof of 
his house or at another place. A few years ago a 
rich Mussulman died. It is not known how many 
wives he used to keep, but the papers at Constan¬ 
tinople announced that he left forty children. 
There are exceptional cases however, in which 
even poor men have more than one wife. “Years 
ago,” says Charles MacFarland, Esq., the author of 
“ Turkey and its Destiny,” “ there was an old Mur- 
ekebji who got his living by selling Turkish ink, 
which he peddled about the city of Constantinople, 
at Scutari, Pera, Galata, Tophana, and the large 
villages up the Bosphorus. He would be for three 
or four days in one place and three or four days in 
another; and although his whole circuit was lim¬ 
ited, he was always moving about. He had a wife 
at Constantinople proper, another over in Asia, at 
Scutari, one at Tophana, and still another up the 
Bosphorus. One day he was asked how, with such 
a very little trade, he could keep so many wives. 
The old ink-seller replied, ‘ Maeshallah, I am but 
a poor little man, but God is great! I am always 
with one wife or the other. When I go home to 


SOCIAL LIFE. 


155 


one I take my dinner and something- more with 
me, and some paras (cents) are not wanting; each 
of my other wives is at the same time sure of her 
lodgings, her loaf of bread, and her candle; in 
each of the four quarters where my wives live I 
have credit with a grocer, who furnishes a loaf 
and a candle daily. As I go my rounds I pay the 
grocers in turn, so that the credit is always good. 
Inshallah ! I shall sleep at Tophana to-night, but 
every one of my three wives over the water will 
have her loaf of bread and her candle. As they 
fare better when I am with them, every one of 
them is always glad to see me.’ ” 

There are many who suppose that Mohamme¬ 
danism is an easy and sensual religion, because it 
sanctions polygamy. But it may be asked, Was 
slavery in America thirty years ago a part of 
Christianity ? Are Christian Europe and America 
to-day less sensual than the Mohammedan world ? 
Saloons, theatres, prize-fighting, gambling, duels, 
and suicides are found not in the bosom of the 
Mohammedan but of the Christian world. An 
eminent minister of the gospel said in his stirring 
appeal for temperance (referring to a late prize¬ 
fight), “No pure-minded woman has been able to 
read the daily papers for a week without a blush 
of shame.” But does any fair-minded man think 
that these indulgences are the fruit of Christian¬ 
ity? God forbid! We are too prone to judge 
Mohammedanism by our Christian standard, for¬ 
getting that Mohammed was born in Arabia, and 
polygamy was rooted in its soil before he was born. 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


156 

Says Bishop H. Southgate, who lived many 
years in the Orient, concerning polygamy, “ He 
(Mohammed) undertook its reform. He raised the 
Arab female from her degradation. He made dis¬ 
tinct provision for her relief from the wicked pre¬ 
judices to which she had been subjected. The 
evils which he could not remove he suffered to 

remain. He tolerated but he did not create 

them. On the contrary, in most instances he im¬ 
pliedly condemns while he allows them. Hus¬ 

bands are forbidden (in the Koran) to maltreat 
their wives in order to compel them to take the 
first step towards a divorce, and they are required 
to cherish them with kindness.” You can find a 
multitude of Mohammedans who will say as one 
of them said, “ I have one wife whom I have 
loved many years, and I will not take another.” 

A distinguished Christian traveller in the Ori¬ 
ent says, “ How can a man who has more than one 
wife love very much either wife or children?” He 
answers, “ Of course, as their interiors are screened 
from observation, we cannot see whether there is 
love or hatred within, but those who have lived 
among the Turks say that no people are more fond 
of their children.” 

The general tendency of Mohammedans in 
Turkey at the present time is rather towards mo¬ 
nogamy than polygamy. 

ARMENIAN ENGAGEMENTS AND WEDDINGS. 

Among the Protestant Armenians the ceremo¬ 
ny of engagement is as follows: The friends and 




SOCIAL LIFE. 


l 57 


immediate relatives of both sides assemble in 
a room. The minister reads a portion from the 
Scriptures and addresses briefly the young man 
and woman. After the prayer of the minister the 
whole congregation begin to sing. The young 
man presents a Bible to the girl as a token of his 
engagement to her, and she accepts it thankfully. 
After this come refreshments, which are shared 
by all. The congregation, after heaping congrat¬ 
ulations on the heads of the immediate relatives, 
depart. 

Among the Armenians the ceremony is very 
simple but impressive. A little golden cross is 
sent from the party of the young man to the house 
of the girl. There a priest hangs the cross around 
the neck of the girl, and from that time the young 
man and young woman consider themselves en¬ 
gaged to each other. Afterwards the young man 
has liberty from time to time to send the girl 
jewelry or other tokens of love. 

The marriage ceremonies among the Arme. 
nian people are more or less brilliant according to 
the wealth of the parties. The wedding invita¬ 
tions are sent from both parties. The marriage 
ceremonies begin on Friday, when the bride’s 
friends accompany her to the public bath, where 
the day is spent in bathing and feasting. The 
bridegroom, also accompanied by his friends, goes 
to another bath. On Saturday evening all the in¬ 
vited guests, in their best clothes, go to the house 
to which they were invited. Preparations for 
the supper are great. All guests sit on the floor 


158 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


(if the people are rich, on chairs) and the wedding 
pilaf and other Oriental best dishes are arranged 
on the large, low table. During the supper the 
use of wine is customary, and musicians entertain 
the guests throughout the repast. Next day, Sun¬ 
day, the house of each party is a scene of gayety 
and festivity; laughing, chatting, singing, and 
dancing are the order of the day. The groom is 
shaved before the guests in a very showy manner. 

About nine o’clock p. M. the priest comes to the 
house of the bridegroom and offers prayers over 
some of his garments. Then he is arrayed in 
them, and about ten o’clock p. M. all start off for 
the bride. The party, with small torches in their 
hands, are accompanied by the priest and musi¬ 
cians. When the music is heard in the house 
where the bridal party are waiting, the cry is heard 
in all the rooms, “ Behold, the bridegroom cometh ; 
go ye out to meet him,” Matt. 25:6. The party of 
the bridegroom is welcomed by the sprinkling of 
rose-water. The reception is magnificent. Cof¬ 
fee, sweetmeats, and cigarettes are offered to the 
party of the groom. The bride’s friends having 
assisted her in the arrangement of the bridal gar¬ 
ments, the bridegroom enters the reception-room 
and kisses the hands of all guests, beginning with 
his father-in-law and mother-in-law. After this the 
priest takes the bridegroom and says to the guests 
in the reception-room, “ Bring forth the bride!” 
who stands extremely bashful at the corner of the 
room in her bridal garment and is covered from 
head to foot with scarlet silk. She seems reluc- 


SOCIAL LIFE. 


159 


tant to depart from her corner to take her stand by 
the bridegroom. After a few minutes the priest 
calls out again, “ Bring forth the bride!” Then 
the bride, accompanied by some ladies, moves for¬ 
ward. It is now time to start for the church where 
the marriage will take place. The bridegroom is 
surrounded by men, and the bride by women with 
torches in their hands. The musicians, accom¬ 
panying their instruments with their lamentable 
and heart-rending voices, go ahead. Two boys 
carry large torches before the bridegroom and his 
party, and after him comes the bride with her 
party. The church is brilliantly illuminated. The 
bride and groom enter the church and kneel down 
side by side, and after a short prayer they go for¬ 
ward to the altar. The ceremony lasts more than 
an hour, and is performed in the old Armenian 
language, which, alas, is unintelligible either to 
the bride or to the groom. Then their heads come 
in contact and are tied together with a string, 
showing the unity of the couple. After the mar¬ 
riage ceremony most of the guests retire to their 
homes. The bride follows her groom. The mu¬ 
sicians precede them, accompanying their instru¬ 
ments with their monotonous voices, and in a few 
minutes the bride is in her new home. 

THE BRIDE AT HER NEW HOME. 

She is very bashful. She does not smile and 
talk as brides in America do. She is obliged to 
stand all the time. She sits down only at the 
command of her mother-in-law; she is obliged 


l6o LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 

to kiss the hands of the guests, of the groom, 
of her father-in-law and mother-in-law, even the 
hands of the children. The dancing of the groom 
with his bride is an inevitable custom. The guests 
form a circle, the bride and groom taking a part 
with them; then they begin to dance in a circle. 
During the dancing the bridegroom scatters small 
coins around the room, and the children pick them 
up as quickly as they can. There is no sleep that 
night. 

On Monday and the following days during the 
week congratulatory visits are made to the bridal 
' couple. In some places the veil of the bride covers 
her face for several days, and often the bride¬ 
groom does not see the face of his bride for some 
days after the marriage. 

The last ceremony is ended on Saturday night 
of that week, when the bridegroom with his bride, 
accompanied by his friends and some of his rela¬ 
tives, goes to the house of his father-in-law and 
mother-in-law and kisses their hands. 

THE CUSTOM OF DOWRY. 

The custom of dowry differs in different sec¬ 
tions of the country, so that, instead of the bride 
and her party giving the dowry, it is given by the 
bridegroom or his party to his bride before his 
marriage. Gen. 24:53. 

A few years ago two Armenian girls were mar¬ 
ried in the interior. The father of one of the girls 
was debtor to a priest about $30. The priest de¬ 
manded the money. The man, unable to pay, said 


SOCIAL LIFE. 


161 


to the priest, “ I have no money; let me give my 
daughter to your son, and let us call the debt can¬ 
celled.” The priest accepted the proposition and 
said to the man, “We have seen your daughter; 
bring her and let me marry her to my son.” The 
man brought his daughter. The priest began to 
make preparation for the marriage of his son, per¬ 
fectly satisfied that the dowry matter was settled. 
But the father of the girl said to the priest, “ I 
want $25 dowry; then I will give my daughter to 
your son.” The priest, not having the money, said 
to the man, “ I have no ready money; after the 
marriage I will give it to you.” “No,” said the 
man, “ I do not give my daughter on credit.” The 
priest finally found the money demanded and 
gave it to the girl’s father and married her to his 
son. 

The other case is as follows; A young man 
came to a village to be married to a girl to whom 
he was engaged, but he was unable to pay all the 
money (dowry), which was about $12, to the father 
of the girl. The young man was unable to borrow 
the money in the village, and if he had gone to 
bring money from his village the time of marriage 
would have passed, it being the last week of the 
Carnival. (Armenians do not marry during the 
Fast weeks.) The young man finally secured an 
ox from one of his friends and gave it as a pledge 
to the girl’s father, provided that he should bring 
the money after his marriage. The girl’s father 
consented to this and gave his daughter to him in 
marriage. When the bride and groom left the 

11 


Life lu the Orient. 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


162 

church the father of the bride took his daughter 
and son-in-law to his house and said to him, “ Now 
you are married, go, then, bring the $12 and take 
my daughter.” The young man said, “ Did I not 
leave with you an ox as a pledge? Wait; let me 
take my wife home and return your money.” 
“No,” said the father-in-law, “ I have kept the ox 
as a pledge until now, but hereafter I will keep 
my daughter as a pledge, until you bring my 
money.” The poor bridegroom was obliged to 
leave his bride and return to his village, where he 
finally succeeded in borrowing the money and 
returned in three weeks to redeem his pledge! 

BRIDAL SLAVES. 

One of my friends, a pastor not far from Con¬ 
stantinople, recently wrote an article in the “Aved- 
aper ” concerning the position of the girls after 
they become brides. He says, “ There are women 
in the village who have brought up children unto 
adult age who do not speak with their brother- 
in-law. Why ? Because they are under com¬ 
mand. At the command of their commander their 
tongues are loosed. A girl may be free and hon¬ 
orable in her father’s home, but when she becomes 
a bride she is no longer free; she is a new servant 
of the house, and obliged to do promptly what she 
is commanded to do. She becomes the humble 
servant of all who are in the house. At nights, 
when she is sleepy, she cannot retire. She is 
obliged to wait till she puts to bed her father-in- 
law and mother-in-law and the other members of 


SOCIAL LIFE. 


163 

the house. She takes off their clothes, kisses their 
hands (which is to say good-night), and then she 
may retire, provided that she will get up earlier 
than any member of the family; then she is 
obliged to put on their clothes, to pour water on 
their hands, and hand them the towels. The 
bride is obliged to do all these in such a slavish 
manner that it cannot be equalled even among 
the African people. Africans are sold, but their 
tongues are free, they can talk ; but the tongues of 
these bridal slaves are sold. They are obliged to 
make known their wants by signs.” 

FASTS AND FESTIVALS. 

The three great Oriental religions, viz., Juda¬ 
ism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism have their 
own great national fasts and festivals. The Jews 
have their Purim and Pesak, Christians their 
Christmas and Easter, Mohammedans their Bay- 
ram and Ramazan, and Persians their Nev-Rooz. 
Besides the great festivals, the Mohammedans 
keep Friday, Jews Saturday, and Christians Sun¬ 
day. As the ruling party are Mohammedans, 
their fasts and festivals surpass those of other 
nations and are celebrated in a more pompous 
manner. 

Bayram, the Mohammedan festival, is preceded 
by Ramazan, the month of fasting. Fasting is ob¬ 
served in the daytime, that is, from four A. M. to six 
p. M. Before the day of Ramazan, after the noon 
prayer, seven cannons announce that all believers 
are to prepare for the fast which begins next 


164 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


morning at daybreak. The fast is obligatory. 
The law prohibits eating, drinking, and smoking. 
The daily fast is broken at sunset, and a cannon 
announces its end every day during the month of 
Ramazan. After taking a good supper the people 
go to the mosques to pray, and after that they go 
to the coffee-houses to smoke and take their coffee. 

In those places where the majority of the popu¬ 
lation consists of Mohammedans, little work is 
done during Ramazan. The market-places are 
deserted, and nothing is done in the Government 
except during a few hours of the night. Trav¬ 
elling is also dull. There is difficulty in finding 
muleteers, and even if they consent, they are very 
cross and move very slowly. During the day the 
market-places and streets are deserted, but at 
night they are densely crowded with people of 
both sexes. The story-tellers have their audiences 
of hundreds, the mosques show a blaze of light 
through their windows, the minarets are illumi¬ 
nated until midnight, when people begin to retire. 
After a few hours a cannon awakes the believers 
to take their breakfast, and about four o’clock A. M. 
a second cannon announces the moment after 
which no one may eat or drink. It is true that 
for the rich Moslems to fast during the long days 
of Ramazan is not difficult, since they can eat 
heartily during the night and sleep all the day, 
so as to change the night into day and the day 
into night. But for the poor class Ramazan has 
an entirely different meaning. They are obliged 
to labor for their daily bread in the scorching sun, 


SOCIAL LIFE. 


165 

without even a cup of fresh water, during the long 
hours of summer, an abnegation which hardly can 
be seen in any other religious creed. The month 
of fasting (Ramazan) begins with the new moon 
and lasts till the second new moon. It being the 
month of fasting, more attention is given to the 
calendar than during any other month of the year. 
The sooner the new moon arrives, the greater is 
the joy of the fasters. The proclamation by the 
seven cannons is a relief to the fasters. The new 
moon has appeared. Ramazan is over, and the 
three days of Bayram begin next day. 

During Bayram everybody visits everybody. 
The believers salute each other at home, as well 
as in the markets and coffee-houses, by embracing 
each other and saying, “ May you be in peace all 
the year!” The servants kiss the hands of their 
masters, the children those of their parents. 
Everybody wears new clothes. The markets and 
bazaars are again crowded. Music pervades the 
street and is played at the doors of the houses, and 
rewarded with bakshish. The officers of the Gov- 
. ernment wear their best clothes and the soldiers 
their new uniforms. Turkish flags are seen on 
every hand. After the public prayer of the sultan 
he gives a reception to the royal princes, ministers, 
and other high officers of the Government and to 
the representatives of various nationalities, to the 
ambassadors and ministers of different Govern, 
ments who reside in the capital. All these, attired 
elegantly in their official apparel, go to the palace 
and congratulate the sultan. 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


166 


DRESSES AND ORNAMENTS. 

The dress of Oriental people is far from being 
uniform. Each nation tries to show its nationality 
in its costume. The red fez (cap), with a black 
silky fringe behind it, is the inevitable sign of the 
Turkish men. 

The more the people come in contact with the 
Europeans in the Levant, the more the natives 
drop their national costume and follow European 
styles. During the past twenty years there has 
been a great change in this respect. When I was 
a little boy there were many Armenian ladies who 
used the feridje and the yashmak (the feridje is a 
large over-wrap, and the yashmak is a head cover¬ 
ing) to cover themselves from head to foot. At 
the present time there is not an Armenian lady in 
Adrianople who uses these. Armenians have ex¬ 
changed the large black cap for the red fez. Many 
Turks have abandoned their turbans and pharisaic 
flowing garment, and have adopted the European 
coat. Many Turkish ladies have left their yellow 
morocco slippers and adopted boots or shoes. 
Within twenty or thirty years it will be very diffi¬ 
cult to find a man in his old Oriental costume in 
the large cities of the Levant. 

But there is a class of people for whom any re¬ 
form is impossible. That class is Mohammedan 
ladies; they cannot abandon their eternal feridje 
and yashmak. They can change their thick cotton 
yashmak into fine silky muslin, or the sacred green 
color of the feridje into the polite black one, but 



THE ORIENTAL AUTOMOP.ILI 
















SOCIAL LIFE. 


167 

they are not, and will not be able to put them aside 
entirely. The influence of modern civilization 
cannot affect their old costume. They will not be 
able to wear the beautiful hat of European ladies. 
They are under the obligation of sacred law not 
to show their beauty to any man save their hus¬ 
bands ! If one attempts to do so, her husband will 
divorce her immediately. 

It is not easy to form an idea of the beauty of 
Turkish ladies. They may be regarded as the 
prototype of female beauty, but under their veils 
and unenviable dresses their glowing complex¬ 
ions, immense black eyes, well turned chins, per¬ 
fect outline of face, slender waist, and straight fig¬ 
ure are deformed. 

Necklaces, bracelets, ear-rings and finger-rings, 
and all kinds of jewelry are used by Oriental wo¬ 
men. There are women in Asiatic Turkey who 
adorn their heads with small gold coins, and hang 
them about their necks also. 

HOUSES. 

For the most part the houses are very poor in 
timber, and are far from being comfortable and 
commodious. The houses of the poor classes are 
generally built of dried clay bricks, which are not 
at all durable. The sun-dried bricks are nothing 
more than masses of mud intermixed with straw, 
pressed by hand into a wooden mould and then 
left to dry in the sun. Burnt bricks are unknown 
in many places. The better class of houses are 


168 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


built of wood, and the best kind of houses, courts, 
or palaces are built of stone or marble. 

City buildings of the better class are two sto. 
ries high. Oriental houses have no front-yards like 
American houses, but they have a roofless space 
in the centre of the house containing frequently a 
flower garden. The children play in this yard, 
and it is used for washing and bleaching pur¬ 
poses. 

Haremlik and Selamlik. The houses of Moham¬ 
medans have two departments, haremlik and 
selamlik. The first is for women, and the second 
part is alloted to the men. The selamlik is an 
apartment where the master of the house re¬ 
ceives his friends. During that time none of his 
female domestics or wives are allowed to appear, 
but only male servants. The haremlik is gener¬ 
ally a long room communicating with some others, 
and is the ordinary living apartment of the wo¬ 
men and female domestics. In this room nearly 
all the household operations, such as sewing, spin¬ 
ning, and weaving, etc., are performed, and be¬ 
cause there is no particular dining-room they take 
their meals in this room. Around this room is 
a range of closets a couple of feet above the 
ground which contain domestic utensils, clothes, 
dishes, cups, and other articles appertaining to a 
household. 

Ladies here spend their time in singing, dam 
cing and smoking; but at the appearance of the 
efendi (master) all immediately keep silence. One 
of his wives draws off his boots, another puts on 


SOCIAL LIFE. 


169 

his slippers; one of his concubines brings him his 
home clothes, and another offers him coffee and a 
pipe. 

Many in this country ask me, “ Do the Moslem 
ladies get out of the harem?” I reply that they 
have perfect liberty to leave their houses and go 
wherever they please. You can meet in the streets 
more Moslem than Christian women. It is cus¬ 
tomary to see hundreds of Turkish women, veiled 
in their white laces, walking on the beach of the 
Bosphorus, chatting, laughing, and smoking, a lib¬ 
erty which is not common among the Christian 
women. The yashmak is the woman’s protection 
against the jealousy of her husband and the insult 
of others. 

Parlor. If the house has a gallery, the par¬ 
lor must be there. The parlor or guest cham¬ 
ber is a square room with sofas which run 
around the sides of the room, with cushions 
leaning against the wall and rising to the sill 
of the windows, so that as you lean on them 
you command the view all around. Chairs and 
tables are not inevitable articles of a genuine 
Oriental parlor, but a large looking-glass hanging 
on the wall is necessary. 

The windows are many and very small, and 
these ought to be in pairs, one on each side. The 
parlors of the rich are very lavishly ornamented 
with Turkish and Persian carpets, both on the 
floor and sofas. An Oriental gentleman cannot 
express higher respect for his guest or friend 
than to give him his parlor for a sleeping-room. 


170 LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 

House-cleaning. House-cleaning is entirely dif¬ 
ferent from the custom in America. The opera¬ 
tion of house-cleaning is performed by deluging 
the floor with water, and then the cleaners step on 
a brush or rag and move it forward and backward 
with their feet. In many places the house-clean¬ 
ing, like that above described, is necessary every 
Saturday. The reason of such frequent cleaning 
is that the rooms are not matted or carpeted dur¬ 
ing the summer, therefore they are liable to be¬ 
come dirty. 

How the Houses are Heated. Wood and char¬ 
coal are the heating materials in Turkey. Coal is 
never used. In many places stoves are put in the 
rooms and wood is burned in them. But generally 
the houses or rooms are heated by charcoal. The 
charcoal is put into a fire-pan, then a little piece of 
fire is dropped into it, the pan is taken to the door 
and the fire fanned into a flame; it is then 
brought in and placed in the centre of the room. 

In Asiatic Turkey the people use a tandour 
during the winter. This is a table about three 
to five feet square, under which they put a brass 
or earthen mangal, or fire-pan, filled with charcoal. 
A thick cover of cloth is laid over the table, reach¬ 
ing down to the floor. The people sit around the 
table, lifting up the cloth upon their laps and put¬ 
ting their feet under the table, while their backs 
and shoulders take care of themselves! 

In some places, where charcoal and wood are 
scarce, the women during the summer gather 
horse-dung and cow-dung, dry it in the sun, and 
keep it for winter fuel. 


SOCIAL LIFE. 


171 

Eating. A strictly Oriental family follows the 
patriarchal example and custom in eating and 
drinking.* Mohammedans in this respect sur¬ 
pass all other nations. The food, bread, etc., is 
arranged on a large copper or a round board table, 
set upon a wooden or iron support about two feet 
above the ground. This is usually covered with 
a coarse cloth. The family surround the table, sit¬ 
ting cross-legged. Each member of the family is 
provided with a napkin which is a couple of yards 
long. There is a wooden spoon for each person; 
if the family is rich, a metal or silver spoon is 
used. Mohammedans do not generally use either 
forks or knives at the table; the fingers do their 
work instead. 

If a chicken is placed upon the table it is sev¬ 
ered with the hands, first the legs, then the wings 
being parted from the body. The meal is ar¬ 
ranged on a large tray and is placed in the centre 
of the table. A large cup of water is also placed 
on the table, all persons drinking from the same 
cup. The salt and pepper are taken out of the 
same dish with the fingers. At the end of the re¬ 
past the ewer is passed around, each member of 
the family washing his hands and drying them 
on the linen. After this come coffee and cigar¬ 
ettes. 

The table of a noted person is extravagantly 
furnished. Soup comes first, and then various 

* In Constantinople and other prominent cities there are a good 
many people who use high tables, chair:., forks and knives, etc, 
during the eating. 


172 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


kinds of vegetables cooked with mutton or goat. 
Balls of pounded mutton or rice seasoned with 
parsley, onions, black pepper, and salt, and en¬ 
veloped in fresh vine leaves, come next. The 
pilaf is an essential article of an Oriental table. 
Then come pastries of different kinds, and if it is 
summer, all kinds of fruits. Thus the Oriental 
table of a grandee is able to satisfy the most greedy 
eye and the most vigorous appetite. 

VISITING. 

Visiting is usually done on festival days, at the 
birth of a child, after marriage, after the death 
of a friend or a relative, and after the arrival of 
friends and neighbors. Generally only people of 
the same nationality visit each other. It is ex¬ 
ceptional to see Greek visitors in an Armenian 
home or Armenian visitors in a Mohammedan 
home. Visiting is regarded as one of the most 
important features of social life. Oriental people 
are very fond of it. In America people may be 
neighbors for years without paying a visit to one 
another. In Turkey this is not so. The neighbors 
visit each other often. It is not an exceptional 
thing for a family to carry their supper and eat it 
with their neighbors. 

Visiting among the Christian population is en¬ 
tirely different from that which prevails among 
the Mohammedans. When Christian families visit 
each other they sit together in the same room. 
Then the children and young folks come and kiss 
the hands of all the guests. The ladies generally 


SOCIAL LIFE. 


173 


do not sit by their husbands. The men and wo¬ 
men form separate groups or circles. The men 
talk among themselves, and the women among 
themselves, though the ladies and gentlemen 
occasionally talk with each other from corner to 
comer. But the visiting of Mohammedan people 
differs in this respect, that the men and women do 
not sit in the same room. If a man enters a Mo¬ 
hammedan home, the women and girls fly one to 
this and another to that room; one catches up a 
veil, another covers herself with her cloak. 

The winter is regarded as the best season for 
evening visiting. Visits are usually long. Gen¬ 
erally the guests sit till long after midnight with¬ 
out regard to circumstances; e. g., perhaps the 
children cry and the boys and little girls go to 
sleep in one corner of the room, but nobody takes 
them into consideration. 

The first duty of the master of the house is 
to open the street-door and welcome his guests 
with various gestures and salutations. The guests 
take off their shoes and enter the parlor. After a 
while cigarettes are offered to both sexes. (The 
offering of cigarettes does not prevail in the inte¬ 
rior of the country.) 

During the day no one calls but ladies. If the 
ladies are older than their hostess, she kisses their 
hands; if younger, they kiss her hand. But if the 
ladies are of equal rank, they are satisfied with 
putting their hands on their lips and then on their 
foreheads. After this first ceremony the hostess 
takes off the shawls of the ladies and puts them in 


*74 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


another room, and frequently after a few moments 
she will leave them without excusing herself, and 
run down stairs to arrange the shoes in pairs, that 
the guests may have no difficulty in finding them 
upon their departure. After the arrangement of 
the shoes she returns to the parlor, and if she has 
any servants or daughters, she orders them to 
bring coffee and sweetmeats; if she has neither of 
these, she leaves her guests again and engages 
herself in boiling the coffee and arranging the 
sweetmeats, which consumes considerable time. 
If the guests are very familiar, she boils the coffee 
before them and prepares it in the following way: 
First she puts water in the coffee-pot, and allows 
the water to boil, then she puts in the sugar; the 
water and sugar are allowed to boil a short time, 
when she adds the coffee ; if she has milk, she 
pours it into the pot; then the water, sugar, coffee, 
and milk are allowed to boil a while. She then 
puts the prepared coffee in small cups which are 
placed in metal or silver holders, arranges them 
on the waiter, presents them to her guests, and 
retires to the end of the room, where she stands 
with her hands crossed watching the cups she has 
presented and has to carry away. 

It is customary upon the departure of the 
guests for them to ask their host, “ May we take 
our leave?” “Will you excuse us, please?” If 
they are of equal or of higher rank than the host, 
he accompanies them to the door while his wife 
goes before and opens the door for their depar¬ 
ture. But if the guests are beneath him in rank, 


SOCIAL LIFE. 


175 


he follows them to the door, taking care to keep a 
few steps behind. The guests then say with a 
profound salam (salutation), “ May God keep you! 
May the Lord reward you!” The host replies 
very politely, “With good fortune, with health.” 
This closes the ceremony of visiting. 

HOSPITALITY. 

Modern civilization has destroyed hospitality 
and organized asylums and hospitals for aged and 
sick persons. Oriental people, being behind mod¬ 
ern civilization, retain many patriarchal customs 
and manners. One of them is hospitality. The 
Mohammedans especially surpass all nations in 
this respect. During their travels many European 
people find in the East a warm hospitality. What 
would those Mohammedans think, who are always 
ready to open their doors to all strangers, if they 
should come to America and be required to put up 
at a hotel and pay their board! 

In the villages there are some men who are 
called Oda-Bashi (Chief of Room), whose duty or 
business it is to entertain the travellers without 
regard to their nationality or religion. The room 
where the guests are entertained is without chairs 
or tables, as are many Oriental houses. 

The Oda-Bashi tries to entertain his guests so 
as to satisfy them. He prepares a good Oriental 
supper. He himself lives on bread, salt, and veg¬ 
etables, but he keeps eggs, chickens, and butter 
and brings them before his guests. After the 
evening repast the village men, according to their 


176 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


custom, come to the Oda-Bashi s room and sur. 
round the guests and express great desire to hear 
news from them concerning their country, Govern¬ 
ment, customs, and manners. If the traveller is 
from Europe or America, his dragoman, if he has 
one, interprets all the words which proceed from 
the lips of his master, while the people listen to 
them with great satisfaction and admiration; not 
infrequently, however, they show their displeasure. 

The peasants often relate their complaints to 
the stranger. One complains how he was badly 
cheated by the tax-gatherers, another tells his 
story, and still another his, till the time of de¬ 
parture arrives. The Oda-Bashi spreads a soft 
bed on the floor and bids good-night to his guest. 
The village cocks, at their first crowing, arouse 
the traveller early in the morning, and he takes 
his breakfast. At his departure the traveller puts 
a small bakshish in the hand of the Oda-Bashi , who 
receives it thankfully. If the stranger is poor and 
unable to give bakshish , it will not be asked. In¬ 
deed, no poverty can affect the gentlemanly de¬ 
meanor of the Oda-Bashi . If the stranger is with¬ 
out escort, the Oda-Bashi furnishes him a guide 
who conducts him until he puts the stranger fairly 
under way, when the guide receives his bakshish 
and returns. 

EDUCATION. 

Education is not compulsory. It is not yet re. 
garded as very essential to the public well-being. 
There are no public schools. The Government 


SOCIAL LIFE. 


1 77 


does not give help to non-Mohammedan schools. 
Each nation has its own, which are called national 
schools. Armenian children attend the Arme¬ 
nian, and Greek children the Greek schools. The 
schools of all nationalities are in a better condition 
now than they were twenty years ago, and there 
are more readers and writers than before. There 
is no university in Turkey, and but few colleges, 
academies, or high schools. The best educational 
institutions are in Constantinople. The Greeks 
spend more money for educational purposes than 
any other nation in Turkey. The Armenian popu¬ 
lation in Constantinople is not less than 200,000. 
They have fifty-one schools for both sexes (some 
of them are equal to the high schools of America), 
with 6,000 pupils. The annual expenses of these 
schools are about $50,000. 

While the great cities and towns are provided 
with national schools, many villages and small 
towns are deprived of this privilege. If there are 
some schools in the small towns they are in a 
very miserable condition. The village people are 
generally poor and are not able to assist in the 
education of their children. Many children in 
these places do not attend school, having no lesson 
books and being unable to pay a few cents weekly 
for their education. To illustrate: A few years 
ago a gentleman met an Armenian boy in a small 
town in Asiatic Turkey. The following conversa¬ 
tion took place between them : 

Gentleman. —My boy, why do you not go to 
the school ? 


Life in the Orient. 


12 


i;8 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


Boy.—I have no lesson books, sir. 

G.—Why does not your father buy lesson books 
for you ? 

B.—Father has no money; if he has, he is 
obliged to give it to the tax-gatherer. 

G.—Well, let him give part of his money to 
the tax-gatherer, and with part buy lesson books 
for you. 

G.—But the tax-gatherer wont allow father to 
do so. If the tax-gatherer knew that father had 
money he would fasten him to a column and beat 
him. 

How mean are the privileges and opportuni¬ 
ties of Oriental boys, and how grand are the priv¬ 
ileges of American children! Let the American 
children give a thousand thanks to God for living 
in such a great country, which is full of grand 
opportunities. 

In Constantinople there are Armenian societies 
of both sexes whose purpose it is to educate the 
poor children. Under the auspices of these soci¬ 
eties there are forty schools, 140 teachers, and 
2,500 pupils. All these schools are in Asiatic 
Turkey. 

THE CEREMONY OF A TURKISH BOY’S RECEPTION 

AT SCHOOL. 

When a Mohammedan boy reaches his seventh 
year, his first day at school is celebrated with cer¬ 
emonies. The new pupil sits sometimes on a 
pony and sometimes on a donkey caparisoned for 
the occasion, and is met at his father’s home by all 


SOCIAL LIFE. 


179 

the school, dressed in holiday clothes. The priest 
makes a short prayer, the child is placed on the 
donkey, and the pupils, boys and girls, are formed 
in a double line. 

The procession moves towards the schoolhouse, 
the children singing hymns loudly as they go. 
Another such ostentatious ceremony and pro¬ 
cession is made when the pupil graduates from 
the school. 

A Mohammedan primary school is composed 
of one or two large rooms, the boys and the girls 
being educated together. There are no benches 
in many of the schools, so the pupils sit cross-leg¬ 
ged, holding their books on their knees, and reci¬ 
ting all at the same time in a loud and shrill voice. 
When the pupils are able to read a little they are 
taught grammar and the four rules of arithmetic. 
Then they take up writing, and as there are no 
writing tables or desks, the pupil holds his copy 
book in his left hand and writes from right to left, 
not moving his hand, but the paper from left to 
right. 

A TURKISH LADY AT THE FEET OF A KIATIB. 

There is great enthusiasm now for the edu¬ 
cation of girls as compared with former years, 
yet the education of girls is regarded as subordi¬ 
nate to that given to the boys. There are not a 
few who regard the education of girls as unneces¬ 
sary. This view is especially general among the 
Mohammedan people. There are many Christian 
ladies who can read and write, while among the 


180 LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 

Mohammedan ladies there are but few. If one re¬ 
ceives a letter from her husband, she is obliged to 
go from door to door, or to a kiatib (scribe), and 
hand him the letter and ask him to read it. If 
she desires to reply to the letter she sits on the 
mat at the feet of the kiatib and tells him what 
she wishes to say. The kiatib writes the words as 
they fall from her lips. It is not strange to see, 
here and there, a Christian female teacher; while 
among the Mohammedans a female teacher can 
hardly be found. 

In America a lady can buy a newspaper and 
read it before thousands without shame. It is not 
so in Turkey. I have never seen a lady, Christian 
or Mohammedan, buy a paper and read it. Noth¬ 
ing can be stranger than the sight of an Oriental 
lady reading a newspaper. 

VINTAGE AND WINE-PRESS IN EUROPEAN TURKEY. 

Adrianople is one of the most celebrated cities 
in European Turkey for its vineyards. The wine 
of Adrianople, which is made of grapes, is very ex¬ 
cellent. The people are very much interested in 
the cultivation of the vine. The vineyards are at 
a considerable distance from the city. 

The custom at vintage is a very interesting 
one. I remember how glad and happy I was in 
my younger years at the vintage-time. Before 
the day of vintage many relatives and young girls 
are invited by the master of the vineyard; and if 
the vineyard is a large one, men and women are 
hired to collect the grapes. The best dinner of 


SOCIAL LIFE. 


181 


the people of European Turkey is prepared and 
spread on the soil of the vineyard. The people, 
after spending half a day in collecting the grapes, 
and feeling exhausted and hungry, sit on the 
ground cross-legged and take their dinner with 
great pleasure and satisfaction, which can only be 
appreciated on the day of vintage. Each person 
is provided with a knife and little basket. The 
grapes are cut off by the collectors, who sing mer¬ 
rily and chat with each other during their work. 
There are large baskets near the collectors into 
which the little baskets are poured, and strong 
men carry these large baskets on their backs to 
large barrels which hold three thousand pints of 
grapes, and which are on the wagons outside the 
vineyard, where others meet them to take the bas¬ 
kets and pour the grapes into the barrel, which af¬ 
terward is used as the wine-press. A person who 
is called the wine-press-man, with his bare feet and 
legs descends into the barrel, where he jumps up 
and down and crushes the grapes and prepares a 
place for more grapes, which will come by-and-by 
on the backs of the strong basket-carriers. 

The season of vintage is during September 
and October, the most joyous and happy months 
of the people, when they sit under the shadowy 
leaves of their fruitful vines. 

At sunset vintage is over, and men, women, 
and children return home fatigued. The barrel 
full of grapes is carried on a wagon drawn by 
strong buffaloes. 

The juice of the grapes is used for two pur- 


1 82 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


poses, viz., for making pekmez and various kinds of 
preserves and wines. Pekmez is Oriental molasses. 
As soon as the barrel reaches home the juice of 
the grapes is squeezed out and taken to be boiled 
in large copper caldrons, until the juice becomes 
so thick as to preserve it during the whole year. 
Then the caldron is taken down, and its contents 
left to cool and then put in earthen jars. The 
way of preparing wine is as follows: after the 
barrel reaches home, a man with bare feet and 
legs descends into it and treads on the grapes, 
and filling a bucket from the barrel, hands it to 
a man who carries it to another barrel, where it is 
emptied. This is repeated till all the grapes are 
removed to the second barrel. Each day for a 
month a man with bare feet descends into the 
barrel, where he jumps up and down until all the 
grapes break or burst with explosive noise, and 
the man goes out bespattered from head to foot 
with the blood-red juice. 

There are passages in the Scripture which are 
more easily understood by Orientals than by 
Western people. The following is a good exam¬ 
ple: “Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, 
and thy garments like unto him that treadeth in 
the wine-fat ? I have trodden the wine-press alone, 
and of the people there was no man with me. Yea, 
I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my 
fury; lo, and their life-blood is sprinkled upon my 
garments and I have stained all my raiment.” 
Isa. 63:2, 3 (New Version). 

After the grapes are pressed as above de* 


SOCIAL LIFE. 


183 

scribed, the juice is ready to be transferred to 

another barrel. There it is kept till the process 

of fermentation is completed, when it is ready for 
use. 

SALOONS. 

I am frequently asked about the saloons and 
the kinds of liquors used in Turkey. There are 
two kinds of saloons, native and foreign. The 
native saloons sell native drinks; the foreign sa¬ 
loons generally sell foreign liquors. Native drinks 
are chiefly of two kinds, sharab and raki —wine and 
alcohol. Wine (one quart of which costs about 
five cents) is made from excellent pressed grapes, 
and is very pure and without mixture. To drink 
wine mixed with water is customary in Turkey. 

Alcohol is very intoxicating and is full of the 
spirit of Satan. Fortunately there are not many 
who use raki y which is very dangerous to health. 

The liquors sold in the European saloons are 
more dangerous than those of the natives. Usu¬ 
ally the natives go to the native saloons and for¬ 
eigners to the European saloons. The most of 
the native saloon-keepers in Constantinople and 
Adrianople are Greeks and Armenians. In the 
interior parts of the country there are few saloons. 
In Marsovan, with 20,000 population and fifty 
miles from the Black Sea, there are no saloons. 
This is the case with many large and small towns 
in the interior. I do not wish to say that in those 
cities there is no wine and alcohol used. You can 
find these articles in almost every city and town. 
In Marsovan and elsewhere vineyards are culti- 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


184 

vated by the people and wine and alcohol are 
made and used by them during the whole year. 
Saloons are licensed by the Government upon the 
payment of from ten to twenty dollars. 

If we compare America with Turkey we shall 
find that the latter is more temperate than the 
former. Mohammedans are generally regarded 
as the Prohibitionists of the Orient. It is unques¬ 
tionably true, as Dr. Long, of Robert College in 
Constantinople, says, that among the victims of 
the demon of drink are to be found some mechan¬ 
ics and porters, some day-laborers, some lawyers, 
judges, doctors, and scribes, and fast young men 
by the score, all claiming to be good Moslems. 
But it may be asked, Where do they obtain liquor, 
and who makes them drunk? for there is not 
a single Moslem saloon-keeper in Turkey. They 
become drunkards at the saloons of so-called 
Christian people. When several years ago the 
sultan ordered that all the European saloons in 
the capital should be closed, the protest against it 
arose from the representatives of Christian Eu¬ 
rope ! There may be found more saloons in New 
York State and more money spent for intoxicating 
drinks than in all the Turkish Empire. You may 
see more drunkards in the streets of the Empire 
city than in the streets of the Turkish capital. A 
man in America can open a saloon just near a 
church, while in Turkey the saloons must be 
removed at least two hundred yards from a Ma 
hammedan temple or a cemetery. 


MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 


185 


IX. 

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, 

CONTRARIETIES. 

There are many customs in the Orient which 
are the reverse of those in America. The follow¬ 
ing serve to illustrate what is meant: In America 
a refusal is expressed by shaking the head; in 
Turkey by throwing it backwards. With many 
Mohammedans the shaving of the crown of the 
head is generally adopted as a useful custom, 
while with American people it is done only as a 
punishment. In Turkey there cannot be a more 
shameful punishment to a man than to shave his 
beard or moustache, while in America it is not 
regarded so. The Oriental people are very proud 
of their moustaches; in America it is not strange 
to see a man to-day with a big moustache and to¬ 
morrow without any. In America the people un¬ 
cover their heads and take off their gloves before 
a superior, and walk into his presence with their 
best shoes upon their feet; while in Turkey the 
common people take off their shoes, cover their 
hands, and put on their turbans or caps. In Amer¬ 
ica women bare their necks and arms, while in 
Turkey the men do it. In America the shepherd 
drives his sheep, in Turkey he leads them. In 
America ladies sometimes paint their cheeks; 
Turkish ladies paint their nails. In Turkey many 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


186 

ladies wear trousers and many gentlemen petti¬ 
coats; but in America such an exchange of gar¬ 
ments would be considered a moral outrage. 

American gentlemen wait upon the ladies and 
offer their places to them, while Oriental ladies on 
the contrary wait upon the gentlemen and offer 
their places to them. The American people lie 
in bed with their feet well tucked up and their 
heads bare; the Oriental people cannot sleep un¬ 
less their heads are covered, while their bare feet 
stick out at the other end. The American people 
sleep on bedsteads, which are very comfortable 
indeed, while the majority of the Oriental people 
do not use bedsteads. The lady of the house 
spreads a very soft bed on the floor immediately 
before retiring, and the folks go to sleep without 
hesitancy and have no fears about rolling out of 
bed. In the morning she wraps the bed up and 
puts it in the comer of the room or in its proper 
place; and so on every morning and evening. It 
is the custom with many to carry their beds when 
travelling. In America after the marriage of a 
couple, they generally leave the house of their 
fathers and live by themselves; in Turkey, gen¬ 
erally, they live under the paternal roof. It is not 
unusual to see several generations in one family 
living under the same roof. In America the time 
is regulated by the sun, that is, the people call it 
twelve o’clock A. M. when the sun is in the ze¬ 
nith ; in Turkey it is twelve o’clock at sunset. In 
Turkey a man saws by drawing the saw towards 
him, while in America the heavy stroke is made; 


MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 1 87 

by shoving the saw from him. In America people 
beckon to a person to come to them by drawing 
their hands towards themselves; in Turkey by 
waving their hands from them. In America the 
gentlemen have many pockets in their clothes for 
their pocket-books, watches, etc.; in Turkey many 
people, instead of having pockets in different parts 
of their clothes, have a very large girdle around 
their body in which they put their watches, knives, 
pistols, handkerchiefs, pocket-books, tobacco, and 
pipes. In America a girl after her marriage is 
called after the name of her husband ; in Turkey 
she keeps her former name and is called after her 
father. In America a gentleman and his wife go 
arm in arm or side by side; in Turkey this would 
be considered shameful. The wife is obliged to 
follow her husband at a respectful distance. 

TAKING OFF THE SHOES. 

Moses, the prophet, when he saw the burning 
bush in which Jehovah appeared to him, was 
directed to take off his shoes from his feet, be¬ 
cause the ground on which he stood was holy. 
This mark of respect was regarded in those times 
as due to a superior, as the custom of removing 
the hat is in America. Oriental people very sel¬ 
dom enter the sacred places without taking off 
their shoes. Gentlemen who come from Europe 
and America to Constantinople, when they visit 
the great mosque, St. Sophia, are obliged to take 
off their shoes and put on their slippers, if they 
have them with them; if they do not have them 


188 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


they are supplied with slippers by the janitor of the 
mosque. The Oriental people often say, “ What 
strange people these Europeans are! Instead of 
taking off their shoes they remove their hats!” 

PROVERBS. 

Proverbs are usually considered as the con¬ 
densed wisdom of a nation. The following may 
serve as specimens prevailing among the Turkish 
people : 

The heart is a child, it hopes for what it 
wishes. 

A little stone can upset a large cart. 

A foolish friend does more harm than a wise 
enemy. 

Eat and drink with your friend, but transact 
no business with him. 

A man deceives another but once. 

The horn of the goat is not heavy for him. 

You cannot carry two melons under one arm. 

Who gives to the poor gives to God. 

All that you give you will carry with you. 

An egg to-day is better than a hen to-morrow. 

Do good and throw it into the sea; if the fishes 
do not know it, God will. 

He who fears God does not fear man. 

The fruitful tree is stoned by everybody. 

He who thinks that he knows everything is 
often mistaken. 

The candle does not give light to its bottom. 

He who weeps for everybody soon loses his 
own sight. 


MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 


189 


A good neighbor is better than a relative. 

Death is a black camel which kneels at every 
door. 

He who rides a borrowed horse or donkey 
does not ride often. 

The tongue has no bones; it speaks whatever 
it listeth. 

SALUTATION. 

The Oriental salutation corresponds to the 
general character of the people. While in Amer¬ 
ica salutation is quick, in the East it is slow. The 
Moslems incline their heads almost to the ground 
and touch the lips and forehead with their right 
hand. To kiss the hem of the garment and put 
it upon their forehead is not a strange sight 
among the people. If a pasha or a learned and 
very rich person passes through the streets on 
foot or on horseback, most of the shopmen rise 
and pay their respects to him. 

THE MANNER OF ADVERTISING. 

If a man desires to sell his property, instead 
of going to a newspaper office, he finds a dellal 
(auctioneer) and describes to him minutely what 
kind of property it is he has to sell and also tells 
him its lowest price. Next day the auctioneer 
stands in one of the most popular places of the 
city and begins to cry in his deep, sonorous voice 
describing the property. Then he leaves that 
place and goes two or three squares away, where 
he repeats the same thing. He keeps shifting 


I90 LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 

from street to street describing the property, till 
he arouses the attention not only of the business 
men in the market, but also that of women and 
children at home. If a man desires to purchase 
the property he calls the auctioneer and makes 
him a bid. The auctioneer continues his monoto¬ 
nous shouting for weeks and months, repeating 
the bids and receiving new ones from time to 
time, until he is satisfied with an offer made and 
effects a sale of the property. 

SUPERSTITIONS OF TURKISH PEOPLE. 

Perhaps no nation exists in the world but that 
has its own superstitions. But as soon as civiliza¬ 
tion is established in a country the superstitions 
of the people begin to vanish. I cannot forget 
my first impression when I saw a man on Market 
Street in Philadelphia, Pa., with a cage full of 
birds which used to pick up one of the papers in 
the case to foretell the future destiny of those 
who were willing to drop five cents in the box of 
its master. I said to myself, “Is it possible to see 
in America, one of the most civilized countries in 
the world, men and women so superstitious as to 
seek to know their destiny from a bird ?” 

The Turkish people being behind in civiliza¬ 
tion, they consequently have many superstitions. 

When the people see that the rain does not 
come in season, instead of planting trees and un¬ 
dertaking other means which are necessary to 
bring about a moist atmosphere, all nationalities 
of the city with great religious demonstrations and 


MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. I9I 

processions, go out to a high place and pray, each 
according to their special religious manner. To 
pray to God for rain or other temporal blessings 
is not superstition; but to disregard all necessary 
human means and rely only upon God for rain 
is presumptuous. 

There is a very curious superstition in Marso- 
van, Asia Minor. The Turks dress a donkey in 
bridal robes, tying its ears together and setting a 
fine headdress on them, throw a nice lady’s veil 
over these, and hang long chains of gold coin, 
such as rich ladies wear, about its neck. Then 
they parade the donkey, dressed in this way, 
through the streets, calling out, “Can a donkey 
be a bride ? Can the earth get on without rain ?’ ’ 
As if to say, “We have done a foolish thing, but 
how much more foolish, O God, if you leave the 
earth without rain.” 

If a little boy or a little girl is very beautiful, 
no woman may praise its beauty, saying, “ What 
a fine-looking boy! What a fine-looking girl!” 
If a lady desires to praise the beauty of the child, 
she must first spit upon it slightly several times, 
and say, “ Oh, what an ugly-looking boy!” The 
idea being that if she should praise the child’s 
beauty without doing this, calamities and mis¬ 
fortunes would overtake it. 

In some places at the birth of a child it is 
necessary for a sister, a friend, or servant, to re¬ 
main several days with the mother. If the at¬ 
tendant is obliged to leave her alone for a few 
minutes, she puts a broom in the corner of the 


192 LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 

room for her company. The mothers hang blue 
glasses over the caps of their new-born children, 
the architects puts garlics on the top of new 
buildings against the evil eye. Turkish women 
go to dervishes and scribes to procure spells 
against the jealousy of their husbands, and the 
soldiers bear a talisman for their protection dur¬ 
ing war. 

BAPTIZING OF THE CROSS. 

“The Baptizing of the Cross” on the day of 
Epiphany is a religious superstition prevailing 
among the Greek population in Turkey. The 
ceremony is performed at the places where there 
is plenty of water, viz., at a river or sea-shore. 
When I was at the Dardanelles, being in the 
market one morning, I saw a great crowd running 
towards the sea-shore. I asked the reason, and 
was told that there would be a “ Baptizing of the 
Cross.” Mingling with the running multitude, in 
a few minutes I was at the shore. The bishop 
and a dozen priests in procession were chanting, 
and the people talking and laughing. There was 
no solemnity in the ceremony. The bishop and 
the priests advanced to the shore. Some of the 
men got into boats and shoved out a few yards 
from the shore. Then the bishop, after saying a 
prayer, threw a crucifix into the sea. Instantly 
several of the men who were in the boats plunged 
into the water. It must have been a chilling im¬ 
mersion, as it was a very cold morning on the 18th 
of January. After about five minutes one of the 


MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 193 

divers succeeded in finding the cross, and raising 
it up from the bottom of the sea, was hailed with 
loud shouts by the people on the shore. The re- 
coverer of the cross was conducted to the shore, 
and then to the church in the neighborhood. On 
the way some persons gave money for the benefit 
of the man. The priests began to chant, the rest 
of the men to halloo, the women and children to 
scream. The recoverer of the cross was the hero 
of the day. There have been times, it is said, 
when the mariners of Constantinople, mad with 
the excitement, have grappled with one another 
under the water and fought for the possession of 
the cross; and the man who secured it, half 
drowned, had come to the surface of the water 
with the cross in his hand, with a blackened face 
and with blood streaming from his body. I am 
very glad to say that all well-educated Greeks are 
now ashamed of this superstitious ceremony, but it 
is still performed with great ostentation at all the 
watering-places, to the great dishonor of Him who 
died on the cross. 

BUSINESS LIFE IN TURKEY. 

The business life in Turkey is very inferior to 
that in Europe and America. In America great 
and small manufactories and thousands of works 
of industry give employment to every man, and 
even to women, and keep the whole country in 
business; but in Turkey there are but few fac¬ 
tories. Steam power and machinery are not recog¬ 
nized as essential to humanity and civilization. 

n 


194 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


The girls of poor parents, as well as the girls of 
rich people, have nothing to do in business life. 
The women are strictly secluded in their homes. 
The best business in the Levant is in the hands of 
Europeans. They come to buy silk, cotton, and 
wool, and then take them to their own country and 
give work to many thousands of families in their 
manufactories; while many young men and wo¬ 
men in Turkey spend their lives in perfect idle¬ 
ness and uselessness. The richest capitalists and 
merchants are found among the European people. 
The best part of Constantinople is occupied by 
them. 

About thirty or forty years ago the Turkish 
people were more happy concerning their business 
life than at the present. The people had their na¬ 
tive arts and businesses, which they used to prac¬ 
tise from generation to generation; but since the 
doors of Turkey were opened to Europe their 
business has been destroyed. There are no high 
duties on imported goods and there is no idea of 
home protection. The Turkish market is wide 
open to European merchants and almost monopo¬ 
lized by them. The country is not able to com¬ 
pete with Europe. It is a fact that while the for¬ 
eign population is getting rich, the natives are 
becoming poor. The letters written to me from 
Constantinople and Adrianople show the degra¬ 
dation of the business life and the miserable pov¬ 
erty of the common people. There is no ambi¬ 
tion in inventions. There are no capitalists to 
encourage the gifted mind and the skilful hand. 


MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 195 

There is no patent system. The patents of Eu¬ 
rope are enough! Because of the lack of banks 
interest is very high, especially in small towns. 
It often is as high as thirty or forty per cent. 

Wages of working men are very low. The 
daily pay of a girl who works in the mill is less 
than twenty cents. The daily wages of a car¬ 
penter or tailor are less than one dollar. The 
daily wages of those who labor in the vineyards 
and pave the streets are about half a dollar. The 
living is therefore cheap. Meat, though cheaper 
than in America, is dearer than other articles of 
food, so it is limited to the rich class of people, 
and hence is regarded as a luxury. The people 
generally live on vegetables. 

The large cities are the centres of business 
life, as Constantinople, Adrianople, Smyrna, Bei¬ 
rut, etc. In these places merchants and trades¬ 
men are found as follows: architects, carpenters; 
cabinet, watch, shoe, harness, and box makers; 
tailors, confectioners, dry-goods dealers, fruit-sel¬ 
lers, grocers, druggists, butchers, saloon-keepers, 
lumber and charcoal dealers, and barbers. In the 
towns and villages are found, farmers, shepherds, 
gardeners; charcoal, mat, casket, sun-dried-brick, 
and basket makers; fishers, potters, and wood¬ 
cutters. 

BARGAINS. 

A great deal of time is consumed in making 
bargains. There is more safety in some respects 
in making bargains with Mohammedans than with 
other nations. If a man wants to buy something, 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


I96 

in order not to be cheated he visits half a dozen 
stores to ascertain the price at which he is willing 
to buy it. For example, if you wish to buy a 
carpet you ask, “ What is the price per yard ?” 

Dealer. Half a dollar. 

Buyer. It is too dear. 

D. Then what is your offer ? 

B. Thirty cents. 

D. I lose money. 

B. I cannot help it. 

He begins now to persuade you by his Ori¬ 
ental gestures; he calls heaven and hell, God and 
Satan to his assistance, but in vain. You start to 
leave the store, but he follows you. He calls after 
you, and if he is a little shameless he takes you 
by the coat-collar and brings you back, and offers 
you coffee and a cigarette and renews his bar¬ 
gain. 

Dealer. Give forty-five cents. 

Buyer. I cannot give more than thirty-five 
cents. 

D. Be assured that it costs me more than that, 
but I wish to make you my regular customer. 
“The summer does not come by a single flower.” 
I hope that we shall make more bargains here¬ 
after, and I hope also that you will not give me 
such trouble another time. The carpet is yours. 

The most exorbitant dealers are the Jews, who 
do not hesitate to ask three or four times the 
price of the goods. They train their children for 
business life in their youth, contrary to the gen¬ 
eral custom of other nationalities. The Jews, who 


MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 197 

were years ago the poorest, now may be classed 
among the richest people. 

WOMEN GRINDING AT A MILL. 

The Turkish mill consists of two circular 
stones about two feet in diameter and half a foot 
thick. The upper stone has a hole through which 
the grain is dropped. The upper stone has also a 
convex lower surface, fitting the concave of the 
under stone. There is an upright stick fixed in 
the upper stone which is used as a handle in re¬ 
volving it. The grain is ground and the flour 
comes out at the edges between the stones. 

Two women sit upon a large piece of cloth 
facing each other. Both take hold of the handle 
by which the upper stone is turned round on the 
lower stone. They occasionally throw the grain 
in with one hand, and with the other they con¬ 
stantly retain their hold of the handle, pulling 
towards and pushing from them until all the grain 
is ground. 

THE BIRTH OF A CHILD AND ITS BAPTISM. 

It is a general feeling that the birth of a son is 
hailed with much more interest than that of a 
daughter. The name of the child is not given 
until its baptism, when the sponsor names it. 
Therefore, after the birth of a child, its parents 
do not think of anything but of the day when the 
child will be christened. 

The baptism of infants is always observed on 


198 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


the eighth day after birth. Even those persons 
who are infidels do not object to the baptism of 
their children. Nobody kisses an unbaptized 
child. If a child dies before it is baptized it can¬ 
not be saved; there is no heaven for it, and the 
child is buried beyond the limits of the grave¬ 
yard. 

The children are carried to the church for bap¬ 
tism on the lap of the midwife, and the female 
relatives are invited to be present at the ceremony 
of baptism. Baptism is generally performed on 
week-days, and no man is present but the sponsor. 
Even the father of the child is absent, and the 
mother is prohibited from entering the church till 
forty days have expired after the birth of a child. 
The ceremony of baptism in the Armenian Church 
is as follows: A large marble font is filled with 
water. The water is slightly warmed. The priest 
holds the arms and feet of the infant, which is in 
a state of nudity, and immerses it three times. 
Then the child is clothed carefully and placed in 
the lap of the sponsor or midwife, and the crowd 
proceeds to the child’s home to congratulate the 
mother, where she, in her bed, meets and embra¬ 
ces her child with religious devotions and prostra¬ 
tions. It is customary to give a small stipend as 
compensation to the priest who officiates. 

Names. Armenian Christian names are gener¬ 
ally Scriptural. There are persons also who give 
the names of the national heroes, martyrs, philos¬ 
ophers, and kings. While the children in America 
bear the names of their fathers, in Turkey it is not 


MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 


I99 


so; but children assume the names or surnames 
of their fathers when they arrive at adult age. 
There are persons who have their proper names, 
but they are often called after the business or na¬ 
ture of their fathers. For example: 

Papaz oghlu or Papazian . . . The son of a priest. 

Kitabji oghlu or Kitabjian . . The son of a bookseller. 

Balikji oghlu or Balikjian . . . The son of a fisher. 

Karagoz oghlu or Karagozian . The son of blackeye. 

Basmaji oghlu or Basmajian . . The son of a printer. 

Many names, both of Christians and Mohamme¬ 
dans, are but adjectives. Antaram (female) means 
unfading. Aziz (male) means holy. The name 
of the present sultan, Hamid, means praiser. 

MEDICINE. 

The following article is the translation of a let¬ 
ter published a few years ago in Constantinople, 
in the “ Avedaper" the missionary paper, written 
by an Armenian physician in Asia Minor: 

“The beginning of medicine in Turkey was 
3,000 years ago, and there are here and there 
several medical schools; but unfortunately those 
who use medicines are very few, and many per¬ 
sons cure their sick by the old method, that is, by 
extraordinary means. If a person gets sick, all his 
friends become physicians; one says use this medi¬ 
cine and others that. Each friend of the invalid 
suggests several medicines, and consequently the 
condition of the sick becomes worse. A sick man 
using several medicines, according to the advice 


200 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


of his friends, but without recovering from his 
sickness, said, 4 1 have used many medicines, but 
alas! none of them cured me. Afterwards the 
priest read the Bible over my head, and I was 
cured.’ Another one said, 4 I sent a string to the 
priest and he blessed it, so I bound it around my 
arm in order to be cured.’ There is an old custom 
in many parts of our country that if a man has a 
fever, he takes a piece of paper written over by a 
priest or Turkish Hoja, and puts it in water and 
drinks it in order to be cured. Besides these, nu¬ 
merous persons when feeling sick call a barber to 
bleed them (for in our country the barbers do the 
bleeding); and many persons go to the bath and 
hope for recovery thereby. There are not a few 
persons, also, who in order to be cured go to the 
various brooks, lakes, and springs; many persons 
in order to regain their health take pieces of 
sackcloth and bind them around the branches of 
trees and bushes, etc. 

“ Now in regard to the recovery of the eyes, 
this is performed generally by old women. These 
women have some powders composed of several 
inflammatory medicines, which are very dangerous 
to be used. It is often said, 4 My eyes were very 
bad; I put some salt in them and they became 
well.’ For the recovery of the eyes one recom¬ 
mends the juice of onions, and others garlic, and 
others snuff. 

“Our people,” says the doctor, “now began to 
learn to take the advice of the physician. There 
are many persons who are very ignorant as to the 


MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 


201 


way to take our pills, so that instead of swallowing 
them whole, they chew them first and then swal¬ 
low them. 

“ The most of our people call the physician 
only when the disease has reached its crisis. 
Knowing this, the doctor usually asks those who 
call him at what time the sickness began. The 
answer is that it was five, ten, fifteen, or twen¬ 
ty days before. A sad case is recorded in which 
the doctor was not called till it was too late. 
When he arrived he found the patient dead. 
While he was going he asked the man who called 
him the condition of the sick man. He answered 
the doctor, ‘Some persons say that he is nearly 
dead and others say that he is dead.’ When the 
doctor heard this he said to the man, ‘ Brother, I 
think you are mistaken ; perhaps they said to you, 
“ Go and call the undertaker,” but instead of call¬ 
ing him you called me.’ Finally they reached the 
house and the doctor saw that the sick man was 
already dead! Seeing this, the doctor said to the 
friends of the deceased, ‘ Why did you not call me 
earlier?’ They replied, ‘We did not know that 
the man would die so soon.’ One of them said, 

‘ If you were a good physician, immediately after 
the death of the sick man you could cause him 
to recover.’ ” 

In Constantinople, Adrianople, Smyrna, and in 
other great cities of the empire there are some 
good physicians who were educated in America 
and Europe, but there are a great many towns 
and large villages where there is not a single phy- 


202 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


sician or drug-store. Men live and die without 
seeing the face of a physician. 

How the Village People Treat the Sick. The fol¬ 
lowing conversation took place in a village in 
Asiatic Turkey between two friends. One asked 
the other, whose son was sick, 

“ I want to know what you give your sick son 
to eat.” 

“ The boy eats nothing.” 

“ Nothing at all ?” 

“ He eats, but not enough to mention it. He 
eats daily ten apples, two or three pomegranates, 
a few raisins, and sometimes drinks inspissated 
juice and eats turnip.” 

“ I think he eats something else.” 

“Yes, sometimes he eats bread, egg, cheese, 
fish, unripe and sour fruits. We give him what¬ 
ever he wants to eat. Our neighbors often bring 
him something, and he eats it all.” 

“ My friend, why then do you expect him to 
recover ? Because if a healthy man ate so many 
articles he would die !” 

“It is a gross mistake; the sick recover by 
eating.” 

“That is an old idea. Men in old times did 
not know about the constitution of man. They 
did not know that the stomach of a sick man 
cannot digest the food easily.” 

“ Oh nonsense! What is a stomach ?” 

“ My friend, listen to me. If you cease to give 
such articles of food to your sick son, he will gain 
his recovery soon.” 



ORIENTAL GREEK FUNERAL PROCESSION. 






MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 


203 

“ What do you mean ? Shall we leave him to 
die hungry ?” 

“ Oh no; give him a little soup and keep his 
clothes clean.” 

“ His clothes are clean. Last year on the Great 
Easter they were washed.” 

This dialogue shows the prevailing custom of 
treating the sick by peasants and sometimes by 
citizens in Turkey. 


FUNERALS. 

It is a prevailing custom scrupulously to wash 
and cleanse the body of the deceased. The body 
is sewed up in a white cotton sheet, over which 
are put the best clothes of the deceased. Great 
grief is manifested over the corpse of the dead. 
The relatives, friends, and neighbors, all women, 
surround the body forming a mourning circle, 
and by their vehement sobs and gesticulations 
and by their doleful lamentations begin to eulo¬ 
gize the personal qualities, virtues, and benevolent 
actions of the deceased (Acts 9:39), which tends 
to move to tears and gives fresh impulse to the 
grief of the afflicted family. It is the custom to 
bury the corpse within a few hours after death. 
To bury with a coffin is very exceptional. The 
dead body is placed upon a bier, which has four 
poles, and these are borne upon the shoulders of 
the deceased’s friends and relatives. 

The ceremony of carrying the corpse to the 
grave is different among the various nationalities. 
If the deceased is a Mohammedan, the body is put 


204 


LIFE IN TIIE ORIENT. 


into a closed bier or coffin; the turban or lady’s 
hat is placed on the top of the bier, which declares 
to which sex the deceased belongs. If the de¬ 
ceased is a Christian, the face is entirely exposed 
to view. If the deceased is a young man or wo¬ 
man, the bier is surrounded by beautiful flowers. 
If it is an old person, a black cashmere shawl 
tastefully surrounds the bier. Mohammedan or 
Christian ecclesiastics walk before the procession; 
but while the former is in his usual costume and 
keeps profound silence, the latter is in his sacer¬ 
dotal robes chanting a funeral dirge. If the de¬ 
ceased belongs to the rich class and has left some 
money to the national church or school, the pro¬ 
cession and all the ceremony is performed in a 
very showy and pompous manner. The bishops 
in their costly robes, and many priests and school¬ 
boys in their ecclesiastical garb, chant at the top 
of their shrill voices while they proceed to the 
church or to the grave. Lighted candles and 
torches are displayed along the route, incense is 
burned, and a large crucifix is carried at the head 
of the procession. 

The Corpse at the Church. The candles are 
lighted and the church bell invites the people, 
whether friends of the deceased or not, to the 
funeral service. The services are performed in 
an unintelligible language. The ceremony at the 
church lasts about forty minutes. The bier is sur¬ 
rounded by old ladies, friends and relatives of the 
deceased. The priest reads from the Gospel of 
John 12:42-50, and from the Epistles; then fol- 


MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 20 $ 

low prayers and hymns relating 1 to the vanity of 
human life. After the ceremony at the church, 
the bier is again taken upon the shoulders of the 
friends and carried to the graveyard, where, after 
a short burial ceremony, the clothes of the de- 
ceased are stripped off (though sometimes they 
remain and are buried also) and the body, sewed 
up in cotton, is let down into the grave, which is 
then filled up. 

Cemeteries. The graveyards are without chap¬ 
els. The graves are shallow as compared with 
those in America. The lots are without any fence. 
Regularity and proper arrangement cannot be 
seen in an Oriental cemetery. The people do not 
take care to keep them clean, beautiful, and attrac¬ 
tive. There is no general cemetery; each nation 
has its own. 

Rivalry is shown as much at burials as at other 
times. No Jew is buried in a Mohammedan, nor 
a Mohammedan in an Armenian cemetery. Mo¬ 
hammedan cemeteries are generally within the 
city, shadowed by cypress-trees, while those of 
other nations are out of the city and sometimes a 
few miles away from it. The Armenian ceme¬ 
teries are the best recreation parks in Turkey. 
The Armenian cemetery at Adrianople is about 
three miles from the centre of the city, and is on 
a beautiful slope from which the city and its 
charming environment may be seen to better ad 
vantage than from any other point. There are 
small trees that spread their shadows over the 
graves. 


20 6 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


There is a very old custom which prevails in 
Adrianople among the Armenian people. The 
family of the deceased is obliged to prepare a 
good dinner for the friends, to be eaten at the 
cemetery. This custom is very disagreeable to 
the afflicted family; but they obey it without mur¬ 
muring. If we consider the circumstances—for 
example, that the corpse has been carried for 
miles upon the shoulders, and a considerable time 
has been consumed in the funeral ceremonies at 
home, at the church, and at the grave, and the 
people who have followed are hungry and ex¬ 
hausted—the custom does not seem to be out of 
the bounds of reason. After the burial, mats are 
spread and a very long and low table is brought, 
and the people sit cross-legged to take the eternal 
pilav (rice boiled with mutton) with great appetite. 
Wine is an inevitable article at the table. The 
people who had come hungry and tired and dole¬ 
ful, now return satisfied and cheerful. 

Those who are wealthy put a marble slab on 
the grave of their beloved ones. The date of the 
birth and death of the deceased are engraved upon 
it. Sometimes the best Oriental imagery or epi¬ 
taph is found upon the gravestones. For example, 
if the deceased is a young man or woman, it is 
written, “The chilling blast of fate caused this 
bird to wing its course to heaven/’ 

Here is a mother’s lament for her daughter: 
“ The bird of my heart has flown from my soul to 
Paradise.” 

Another epitaph: “Oh, reader, I ask of thee 


MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 20J 

a prayer; if to-day it is needed for myself, to-mor¬ 
row it will be required for you.” 

Mohammedan tombstones are distinguished 
from the Christian by a head or representation of 
the gilded turban carved in the stone. The Mo¬ 
hammedan cemeteries as compared with the Chris¬ 
tian are in a very desolate condition. There is no 
order or arrangement; the headstones seem to be 
scattered over the ground at random; the ground 
is full of all sorts of weeds and undergrowth. 

PILGRIMAGE. 

Among all the sacred places in the East, Jeru¬ 
salem and Mecca are two places which are most 
important. The first belongs to the Christians 
and the second to the Mohammedans. Jerusalem 
is the only city in the world which has attracted 
so many pilgrims of every nationality and creed— 
a city which is visited by all classes of men, by 
rich and by poor, by learned and by ignorant, by 
civilized and uncivilized, by educated Christian 
and gross skeptic. Though the city (population 
40,000) has lost its former beauty and glory, yet 
there is no other city in the world at the present 
time which attracts such crowds of people from 
every part of the globe. Neither the expense 
nor the difficulties of long journeys prevent the 
people from going to pay a visit to the reputed 
place of the Holy Sepulchre of the risen Christ. 
During Easter and Christmas the streets of the 
city are full of people. The pilgrims, who are 
from every part of Turkey, Europe, India, and 


208 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


America, swarm in the streets of the holy city 
dressed in their festival costumes. What a babel 
of tongues! 

Armenian pilgrims at their departure for Jeru¬ 
salem are always accompanied by their friends 
and relatives and ecclesiastical corps a short dis¬ 
tance. On their return they are welcomed by the 
same company. The pilgrims go first to the 
church and then to their homes in a religious pro¬ 
cession. And they do not return empty handed. 
They bring with them relics from Jerusalem and 
its neighborhood—crosses, small looking-glasses, 
bracelets, soaps, rosaries, etc., to distribute among 
their friends. 

Rodosto, on the Sea of Marmora, is second to 
Jerusalem among the Armenians in the Levant. 
Thousands go there and spend a week every year. 
It is said that one of the nails of the cross is pre¬ 
served in the Armenian church. The people go 
to Rodosto not only to see the nail of crucifixion, 
but to receive a supernatural and miraculous pow¬ 
er from it upon their diseased friends. 

MONASTERIES. 

To have educated ministers was desired by the 
church in the early ages. There were a few theo¬ 
logical seminaries in Caesarea, in Antioch, Alex¬ 
andria, and Edessa, yet these were not sufficient 
to meet the requirements of the church. 

But when during the fifth and sixth centuries 
most of these schools went down during the polit¬ 
ical and ecclesiastical conflicts, then another insti* 


MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 


209 


tution, the monastic community, was established. 
At first not only those who desired to be ministers, 
but common people, used to seek a religious train¬ 
ing and the peace which the world could not give. 
Thousands came because of persecution, and others 
simply to attain the highest spiritual consolation; 
some also who wished to spend an idle life filled 
the monasteries. 

Monasticism was, however, considered a prepa¬ 
ration for the clerical office. 

At present the monasteries in the East are not 
crowded as they were in the past. There are 
about thirty Armenian monasteries under the su¬ 
pervision of bishops or high church officers. The 
largest number of monks is in the monastery at 
Jerusalem, under the auspices of Patriarch Vehabe- 
dian, whose picture is on page 48 of this book. 
There are about forty bishops and vartabeds who 
are without any charge. They retire to this or 
other monasteries until they get a call from some 
congregation or church. Those who are not able 
to fill any office because they are old have the priv¬ 
ilege of spending their life in one of the monas¬ 
teries. So we may call the monasteries in this 
respect “the home of the aged ministers.” 

Again, many of these monasteries are crowded 
from time to time by pilgrims, who during their 
visits find quite comfortable homes there. On 
their departure they remember the inmates of the 
monastery and with their liberal donations gladden 
their hearts. 

Some of these monasteries are very rich in 

Life In the Orient. 14 


210 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


gold, silver, silk, crosiers, costly metals, and pre¬ 
cious stones. 

Monasteries are comfortable transient abodes 
of stranger travellers. These are treated very 
kindly by the superintendents, who show them 
every apartment of the monastery, and give them 
exact information in regard to the roads and the 
character of those lands where the traveller in¬ 
tends to go. The monasteries at present have the 
same object as they had when first established. 
Not a few of the inmates spend their time in wri¬ 
ting or translating books. There is a religious 
and scientific periodical, by name “ Ararat,” which 
is published monthly at the monastery at Echmiad¬ 
zin, in Russia, where the Armenian gathoghigos 
resides. 

Every branch of the Eastern Church has its 
own monastery. But the Greek monasteries are 
much more numerous than all the others put to¬ 
gether. The monasteries at Mt. Athos perhaps 
are the most distinguished. The number of the 
monasteries at this mountain is about twenty, which 
have been the stronghold of monasticism in the 
Orient over ten centuries, and it is venerated by 
the Greek Church as a holy mountain and place 
of pilgrimage. Mt. Athos among the Greeks is 
regarded as second only to Jerusalem. On the 
6th of August, the day of Transfiguration, from 
every part of the world, Turkey, Greece, Russia, 
many devotees attend the festival on this mem- 
orable and venerated mountain. 

The monasteries have been depositories of 


MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 211 

many valuable ancient manuscripts and books. 
The museums and libraries of the civilized West 
would have been less valuable had not these mon¬ 
asteries furnished them with their precious treas¬ 
ures. These volumes and manuscripts which are 
the best ornaments of the Western libraries, have 
been brought from different monasteries, where 
by the fidelity of the monks they have been pre¬ 
served from generation to generation. 


< 


212 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


X. 

AMUSEMENTS. 

STORY-TELLERS IN TURKEY. 

When people read but little, in the absence 
of a general circulation of newspapers, of printed 
histories of war, philosophical essays, and lectures 
by different travellers and professional men, they 
must have something for their amusement and in¬ 
struction. The story-teller is a man who comes to 
amuse and instruct by his anecdotes the Oriental 
people. 

A story-teller is a walking newspaper, a living 
history, a personified book of travels. He is the 
humorist and lecturer of the Orient. And indeed 
the professed story-tellers in the East are almost 
everything; they generally attract larger crowds 
than anybody else. Many of their tales are com¬ 
monplace, but some of them are highly interesting 
and instructive. The story-tellers go to the cof¬ 
fee-houses and bazaars, where they are surrounded 
by an immense crowd of people of every nation 
and rank, some well clad, others in rags, attending 
with the most lively interest to tales they have 
heard perhaps a hundred times before. The story¬ 
teller recounts his tales with the utmost energy 
and much gesticulation, and with a varied tone of 
voice according to his subject. He attracts the 
close attention and high admiration of his audi- 


AMUSEMENTS. 


213 


ence for hours. Those who are familiar with the 
book “ Arabian Nights ” can get a good idea of 
the style and character of Oriental stories. 

Those most interested in the story-tellers are 
the Turks. A Turk, with his long pipe or water 
pipe, will listen for hours to the story-teller with 
wonder and deep interest without once interrupt¬ 
ing the speaker. 

ORIENTAL STORIES. 

Nousreddin Hoja, of Asia Minor, was one of 
the most distinguished humorists of the Turkish 
people. He is dead, but his stories yet live. For 
the translation of the following stories I am in¬ 
debted to Hon. S. S. Cox’s book, “ Diversions of a 
Diplomat in Turkey.” 

“ Hoja used to teach in the parish school. He 
had taught his pupils that whenever he happened 
to sneeze they should all stand up and clapping 
their hands together should cry out, ‘God grant 
you long life, Hoja!’ 

“This the pupils regularly did whenever Hoja 
sneezed. One day the bucket gets loose and falls 
into the well of the schoolhouse. As the pupils 
are afraid to go down into the well to fetch up the 
bucket, Hoja undertakes the task. He accordingly 
strips, and tying a rope around his waist, asks his 
pupils to lower him carefully into the well and 
pull him up again when he gives the signal. Hoja 
goes down, and having caught the bucket, shouts 
to his pupils to pull him up again. This they do. 
Hoja is nearly out of the well when he suddenly 


214 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


sneezes. Upon this his pupils immediately let go 
the rope, begin to clap their hands together and 
shout down the well, ‘ God grant you long life, 
Hoja!’ ” 

“ One day Hoja is too lazy to preach his usual 
sermon at the mosque. He simply addresses him¬ 
self to his congregation, saying, ‘Of course you 
know, O faithful Mussulmans, what I am going 
to say to you.’ 

“The congregation cries out with one voice, 
‘ No, Hoja, we do not know.’ 

“ 4 Then if you do not know I have nothing 
to say to you,’ replies Hoja, and leaves the pul¬ 
pit. 

“Next time he addresses his congregation say¬ 
ing, ‘Know ye, O faithful Mussulmans, what I 
am going to say to you?’ 

“ Fearing that if, as on the previous time, they 
say No, Hoja would leave them again without a 
sermon, all cried, ‘Yes, Hoja, we do know.’ 

“ ‘ Then if you know what I am going to say,’ 
quietly said Hoja, ‘of course there is no need of 
my saying it.’ He again steps down from the 
pulpit. 

“ On the third time Hoja again puts his ques¬ 
tion : ‘ Know ye, O faithful brethren, what I am 
going to preach to you ?’ 

“ The congregation, determined not to be dis¬ 
appointed again, take counsel on the question. 
Accordingly some of them reply, ‘ No, Hoja, we 
do not know,’ while others cry, ‘Yes, Hoja, we do 
know.’ 


AMUSEMENTS. 


215 


‘“Very well then,’ says Hoja, ‘as there are 
some of you who do know and others who do not 
know what I am going to preach, let those who do 
know tell it to those who do not know,’ and quick¬ 
ly leaves the pulpit again.” 

“A friend calls on Hoja to borrow his donkey. 
‘Very sorry,’ says Hoja, who does not want to 
lend the animal, ‘but the donkey is not here; I 
have hired him out for the day.’ 

“ Unfortunately just at that moment the don¬ 
key begins to bray loudly, thus giving the direct 
lie to Hoja. 

“‘How is this, Hoja?’ says his friend. ‘You 
say the donkey is away, and here he is braying in 
the stable.’ 

“ Hoja, nothing daunted, replies in a grave 
manner, ‘ My dear sir, please do not demean 
yourself so low as to believe the donkey rather 
than myself—a fellow-man and a venerable Hoja 
with a long gray beard.’ ” 

“ Hoja borrows from a friend a large copper 
vessel in which to do his washing. A few days 
afterwards the vessel is returned cleaned, washed, 
and polished. Inside of it is another but much 
smaller copper vessel. 

“ ‘ What is this, Hoja ?’ asks his friend; ‘ I lend 
you one vessel and you bring me back two!’ 

“ ‘ It is very curious,’ says Hoja. ‘ It appears 
that your vessel while in my possession must have 
given birth to a baby vessel. Of course, both be¬ 
long equally to you.’ 

“‘Oh thank you, good Hoja,’ says the man, 


216 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


laughing, and without more parley agrees to re¬ 
ceive back both vessels. 

“ Some time after this Hoja again applies for 
the loan of the large vessel—the ‘mother vessel/ 
as he describes it. The demand is readily granted. 
Before leaving Hoja inquires after the health of 
the ‘baby vessel.’ He expresses his pleasure at 
hearing that it is doing extremely well. 

“ A week, then a month elapses, but no Hoja 
appears to bring back the borrowed vessel. The 
proprietor, at length losing patience, goes himself 
to obtain it. 

“ ‘ Very sorry,’ says Hoja, ‘ but your copper 
vessel is dead.’ 

“ ‘ Dead, Hoja!’ cries the other in surprise. 
4 What do you mean ?’ 

“ ‘ Just what I say,’ replies Hoja, ‘ your vessel 
is dead.’ 

“ ‘ Nonsense, Hoja !’ says the man, irritated at 
Hoja’s quiet manner. ‘ How can a copper vessel 
die?’ 

“ ‘ Read up your natural history, my good 
friend,’ answers the imperturbable, puffing quietly 
at his long pipe, ‘ and you will see that everything 
that gives birth to a child must inevitably suc¬ 
cumb in due course to the fate of all mortals. 
You were willing enough to believe that your 
vessel had given birth to a “baby vessel:” I do 
not see, therefore, why you should now doubt my 
word as to its being dead.’ ” 

“ One night before retiring to rest Hoja said 
to his wife, ‘If it rain to-morrow I shall go to 



TURKISH BEAUTIES. 












































* 





















' 





AMUSEMENTS. 217 

my field; if it do not rain I shall go to my vine¬ 
yard.’ 

“‘Say, “If it please God,” Hoja,’ suggests his 
wife. 

“ ‘ Whether it please God or not,’ replies Hoja, 
‘ I shall go to one or the other.’ 

“ ‘ Hoja,’ says his wife, ‘ say “ If it please God.” ’ 

“ * Nothing of the kind,’ says Hoja. ‘ I shall 

go-' 

“ Next day it is not raining, and Hoja starts to 
go to his vineyard. He has not gone far, however, 
when he is stopped by the king’s troopers. They 
compel him to work all day to repair the roads. 
It is quite late at night when he is set free. By 
the time he arrives at his house every one is fast 
asleep. His wife, putting her head out of the 
window, asks who it is. 

“ ‘ Wife,’ replies Hoja, ‘if it please God, it is I.’ ” 

GAMES AND AMUSEMENTS. 

Hunting . The Osmanlis are the best horsemen 
as well as the best hunters in Turkey. They keep 
hunting dogs and horses and all necessary,equip¬ 
ments for sporting. The chief game is deer, 
jackal, gazelle, fox, swine, and many kinds of 
birds. 

Sleighing. Sleighing on the ice is a great 
amusement for children as well as adult Turks 
in some parts of the country. It is sometimes 
dangerous, but this does not hinder anybody from 
sleighing. 

Kite-flying . Kite-flying is a general amusement 


218 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


of young men as well as of children. The Turk¬ 
ish kite may be regarded as professional. Many 
people look up with earnest interest to see the 
paper kite floating and soaring gracefully towards 
the sky. 

Djireed. Djireed is Arabic, meaning stick; it is 
a Turkish game, and shows that the Turks are 
superior in horsemanship to the other inhabitants 
of the country. The game is very interesting and 
is played by several men on their horses. They 
fling up their djireeds in the air to a prodigious 
height, and as soon as they strike the ground the 
players are on the spot, hanging over in their sad¬ 
dles till their hands reach the earth, when they 
grasp the djireeds firmly, lift them up, whirl them 
over their heads, and ride on. 

Music. Turkish music is played upon the fol¬ 
lowing instruments: violin, guitar, pipe, big drum, 
kettle-drum, tambourine, lute, sackbut, bagpipe, 
cymbal, cornet, shepherd’s pipe, trumpet. The 
organ and piano are not Oriental instruments. It 
is a great mistake to suppose that Oriental music 
is deficient in tones and time. It is monotonous 
in some respects, but it is not without harmony 
and melody. The musicians play in coffee-houses 
or casinos, as well as at weddings. They take up 
a collection, and some people, in order to manifest 
their great satisfaction, stick money upon the fore¬ 
heads of the musicians. 

Dancing . Dancing is one of the most fashion, 
able amusements. The dancers form a circle, 
holding each other’s hands. The musicians, sit* 


AMUSEMENTS. 


2ig 


ting usually on their heels at the lower end of the 
room, regulate the dance. I have seen many 
times in Adrianople Greek and Bulgarian girls 
mingling with young men, dancing in the streets 
and forming a large circle, while the bag-piper at 
the centre of the party regulated their move¬ 
ments. 

Horse-racing. Horse-racing is one of the most 
popular games among the people. There are no 
special driving parks as in America. 

Singing. Singing is universal among the Ori¬ 
ental nations. The people sing during their busi¬ 
ness, travelling, walking, dancing, and even dur¬ 
ing their meals. The singing is monotonous, no 
parts being sung but the air. All songs are 
either national or secular. Very few sing reli¬ 
gious songs. 

Boat-racing. Boat-racing is a sport which be¬ 
longs to the Capital. 

Wrestling. Wrestling is a very barbarous game 
(but not brutal, like prize-fighting) which is taken 
from the ancient Greeks and Romans. The 
wrestling is generally performed on festival days. 
A sloping place or valley is selected for the pur¬ 
pose, and people stand on the slope, which gives 
a good view of the wrestlers. The wrestlers have 
their proper costume. The upper part of their 
body is stripped. They anoint themselves and 
begin to wrestle. The Turkish people look upon 
wrestling with as much interest as the Americans 
look upon the baseball game. There are rich 
Turks who have their wrestlers whom they keep 


220 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


for such occasions. If one of the wrestlers can 
bring his rival’s back to the ground or lift him up 
a little, he is regarded as the victor. Thousands 
of spectators manifest their joy and enthusiasm 
by their violent shouts. Then the two wrestlers 
come together holding each other’s hand, walk 
among the crowd and take a collection. 

Karagoz. Karagoz is the name given to Orien¬ 
tal theatricals, or more properly speaking, Orien¬ 
tal pantomime. The pantomime is shown during 
Ramazan , the Mohammedans’ fasting month. Wo¬ 
men are rigidly excluded. I do not know any¬ 
thing which so much demoralizes the character of 
children and young men as this game of Karagoz. 
Yet how many parents, of all nationalities, give 
their children five cents for admission and send 
them to such a diabolical place ! Here many chil¬ 
dren learn the first lesson of immorality. 

Card-playing, backgammon, draughts, and dom¬ 
inoes are the general games. Gambling is pro¬ 
hibited by the Government, but there are not a 
few gamblers. Sometimes gamblers play in the 
streets of Constantinople. 

Beside these games, pigeon-flying, cock-fight¬ 
ing, goose-fighting, camel-fighting, and sheep-coax¬ 
ing are prevailing amusements among the Turk¬ 
ish people. 


STATE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 


221 


XI. 


PRESENT ST A TE OF THE EASTERN 

CHURCH ;* 

“Come over . . . and help us.” Acts 16:9. 

The Eastern Church at the present time is 
stationary. So fixed and so lethargic is her posi¬ 
tion that she is forgotten by the more active, 
aggressive and progressive Christian nations. Yet 
she is still a representative of the primitive faith 
and a standard bearer of Christendom. 

It was in the East that the divine breath fell 
on a virgin who gave birth to the Saviour of the 
world. It was the East that became the theatre 
of Christ’s wonderful career. From the East 
Christianity has flowed like a mighty stream, fill¬ 
ing up many abysses of the earth. 

I. ORIGINAL ADVANTAGES OF THE EASTERN 

CHURCH. 

The Eastern Church has lost in some respects 
its historical significance, but it retains and will 
retain its geographical importance. Jerusalem, 
Antioch, Alexandria, Athens, and Constantinople 
are associated with the history and geography of 
the Eastern Church. Not only cities, but moun¬ 
tains, valleys, hills, gardens, seas, rivers, caves, 
and dens are associated with the period of the 

* For the denominations of the Eastern Church, see page 244. 


222 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


Theocracy as well as Eastern Christianity. The 
magnificent Ararat of Armenia, majestic Sinai oi 
Arabia, the lofty cedars of Lebanon, the Sea of 
Galilee, the Jordan River, and many Christian 
geographical antiquities may be found not in the 
Western but in the bosom of Eastern Christian¬ 
ity. Behold, how grand is her geographical situa¬ 
tion ! Before the time of Christ the sceptre of 
Rome swayed Asia and Europe with mighty pow¬ 
er, and prepared the nations for Christianity. The 
pious Jews, scattered throughout the empire, prop¬ 
agated the doctrine of the unity of God and dif¬ 
fused a practical knowledge of the Old Testament 
among the Gentiles. As the starting-point of 
Christianity was Palestine, it was expected that 
the lands which lie about Palestine would be con¬ 
verted to Christianity. 

The influence of the Greek language. The Eastern 
Church besides had an advantage in the posses¬ 
sion of the Greek language, which was at that 
time popular and almost universal throughout the 
civilized world. The Gospels were written in 
Greek, a language which, by the flexibility and 
richness of its vocabulary, was an admirable instru¬ 
ment for conveying the thoughts of the new reli¬ 
gion. Indeed in the first period of Christianity 
the gospel was preached in Greek, in Greek form 
it was apprehended, and by Greek methods it was 
organized and propagated. 

The geographical position of the Eastern 
Church, together with the influence of the Greek 
language, inspired that church to evangelize the 


PRESENT STATE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 223 

nations. The first Missionary Conference was held 
in the East. There the first revival took place 
and the missionaries of the cross went forth to 
fulfil Christ’s last command, which was given on 
the sacred summit of an Oriental mountain. 

The Eastern Church the parent of Theology. The 
Eastern Church, though without a systematic the¬ 
ology at the present time, is yet the parent of the- 
ology. Christianity came in contact with Judaism, 
Platonism, and many “isms” of the East. There 
it was that many heretical teachings revealed the 
necessity of a systematic gospel. There it was 
that the science of Christian theology arose and 
the doctrines of the gospel were discussed and sys¬ 
tematized. The first seven general councils, with 
all their leading members, were Eastern. All 
were held in or about the walls of the capital of 
the first Christian Caesar. When Arius, the para¬ 
gon of Unitarianism, forced his obnoxious doc¬ 
trines on the Christian world, 318 bishops came to 
settle the question; but of these 318 bishops only 
eight came from the west. Nevertheless, the de¬ 
crees of the council were accepted throughout 
Christendom. 

Its influence upon Reformation. Again the power 
of the Eastern Church was manifested in its in¬ 
fluence upon the far-distant German Reformation. 
It is true that there is no period of Reformation 
in the Eastern Church. One reason is that the 
Eastern Church has not become so corrupt as the 
Western. No patriarch in the East claimed to be 
the successor of Peter, or to be the head of the 


224 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


universal church. No kings came to kiss the 
feet of an Oriental patriarch. No sale of indulgen¬ 
ces, no period of Crusades, no records of the In¬ 
quisition, no prohibition of the Scriptures, and 
finally, no such caricature as the employment of 
armed forces by popes, soiled the fair record of 
the Eastern Church. Constantinople had been 
for centuries the capital of the Eastern Empire. 
The city, as the seat of the most important patri¬ 
archate, had been for a long period the residence 
of scholars, Greek philosophy, and literature. It 
was the Greek gospel and Greek divines and schol¬ 
ars that, at the fall of Constantinople, stimulated 
that growth of learning in the West which so 
magnificently freed the human mind from the in¬ 
tellectual bondage of Rome. 

Immortal Names of the Eastern Church. When 
I look back to the first centuries of Eastern Chris¬ 
tianity I find immortal names which hover like a 
cloud over all Christendom. 

Justin, the philosopher and martyr; Melito, 
the voluminous writer; Athenagoras, the profuse 
scholar; Gregory Nazianzen, the powerful orator; 
Cyril of Alexandria, the strong apologist; Gregory 
of Nyssa, the deep thinker; John Chrysostom, the 
mighty preacher; Origen, the wonderful theolo¬ 
gian ; Athanasius, the great trinitarian; Eusebius, 
the father of church history, all of these and 
others claim and will claim the grateful respect of 
all Christ’s followers. 

In regard to the present condition of the East¬ 
ern Church, it may be said that her horizon is 


PRESENT STATE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 225 

dark and cloudy, but the time will come when her 
darkness and slumber shall have passed away and 
she will appear fairer than the moon and brighter 
than the sun. 

II. RESULTS WHICH FLOW FROM THE SEPARATION. 

The mere fact of the separation of the Eastern 
from the Western Church is foreign to my subject, 
yet it seems to me reasonable to say a few words 
in regard to the results which flowed from the dis¬ 
solution. 

After consecutive tyrannical persecutions raised 
by the Roman Government and by other united 
powers against Christianity, Constantine the Great 
embraced the Christian faith in 323 A. D. Chris¬ 
tians were perfectly safe under the first Christian 
Caesar. He was Emperor of the East and West. 
The Church was one. There were no distinctively 
Eastern and Western Churches. The majority of 
theological seminaries existed in the East, but 
no distinction as to territory was observed in the 
reception of students. 

The prevailing sentiment of the Church was 
that Christianity should become the religion of the 
world, should take possession of nationalities, and 
that the Church should be one and universal. But 
this purpose was threatened both by heretical 
teachings of that time and by hierarchical tenden¬ 
cies of the clergy. 

Old Rome claimed supremacy over the New 
Rome (Constantinople) and indeed over the whole 
Church. By the misapplication of Matt. 16:18, 19, 

15 


Life in the Orient. 


226 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


Rome claimed supremacy as the metropolis of the 
Christian world, for it claimed that there Peter, 
the great apostle, had lived, taught, witnessed, and 
suffered. More than this, Rome claimed that, 
“ Peter, whom the Lord himself had made primate 
among the apostles, had been the first occupant of 
the See of Rome, and the Roman bishops were 
his successors and the heirs of his privileges.” 

On the other hand, the bishops of New Rome 
claimed that, “ Because Constantinople, not Rome, 
was the capital of the Christian Emperor, the Pa¬ 
triarch of the metropolis of the East was likewise 
held to be on a footing of perfect equality with his 
colleague of Rome.” These selfish sentiments of 
primacy and equality may be regarded as the first 
great rupture of church unity. In addition, there 
were other political, ecclesiastical, and doctrinal 
differences between Rome and Constantinople, 
which finally culminated in the division of the 
Church. Before the final separation, which took 
place in 1054, and during these fierce controver¬ 
sies, the Pope of Rome excommunicated the Patri¬ 
arch of Constantinople, and the same Patriarch 
thundered edicts of excommunication against the 
Pope of Rome. 

Separation hastened the Fall of the Eastern Chris¬ 
tian Empire. After their formal separation intense 
bitterness existed between the two factions. The 
rivalry between the Eastern and Western Churches 
was so great during the siege of Constantinople in 
the fifteenth century that in that most critical hour, 
when the last opportunity was offered to unite the 


PRESENT STATE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 22 J 

two churches, the Greeks exclaimed, “ Give us the 
Turk’s turban rather than a cardinal’s hat!’ The 
results which flowed from this antagonism had 
a most important bearing upon the future history 
of the Eastern Church. 

First . It hastened the downfall of Constanti¬ 
nople. This city, until weakened by the plunder¬ 
ings and misdeeds of the Crusaders and Venetians 
in 1204, was a comparatively strong defence to the 
West against the Asiatic nations. The actions of 
these papal emissaries however disheartened and 
weakened the spirits of the inhabitants of Constan¬ 
tinople. To get a clear idea of the destruction 
accomplished, we quote an extract from “ The Fall 
of Constantinople,” by Edwin Pears, pp. 354, 355. 

“ Never in Europe was a work of pillage more 
systematically and shamelessly carried out. Never 
by the army of a Christian state was there a more 
barbarous sack of a city than that perpetrated by 
these soldiers of Christ, sworn to chastity, pledged 
before God not to shed Christian blood, and bear¬ 
ing upon them the emblem of the Prince of Peace. 

. . The city was in wild confusion. Nobles, old 

men, women and children ran to and fro trying to 
save their wealth, their honor, and their lives. 

“ Sword in hand, houses and churches were pil¬ 
laged. . . Monks and priests were selected for 

insult. The priests’ robes were placed by the Cru¬ 
saders on their horses. . . The chalices were 

stripped of their precious stones and converted 
into drinking cups. . . The altar of St. Sophia, 

which had been the admiration of all men, was 


228 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


broken for the sake of the material of which it 
was made. Horses and mules were taken to the 
church in order to carry off the loads of sacred ves¬ 
sels, the gold and silver plates of the throne, the 
pulpits, and the doors, and the beautiful ornaments 
of the church. The soldiers made the chief place 
of Christendom the scene of their profanity. A 
prostitute was seated in the patriarchal chair, who 
danced and sang a ribald song for the amusement 
of the soldiers.” 

In 1453 Mohammed II. captured Constantino¬ 
ple, the city which for centuries had bestowed in¬ 
estimable blessings upon the West through its 
successful resistance to the onward march of the 
Eastern marauders. Yet, notwithstanding this, 
the empty sepulchre of Christ in Jerusalem was 
far more valuable in the sight of Western Chris¬ 
tianity than the Eastern capital full of a Christian 
population. While thousands of Crusaders died in 
the effort to obtain the Holy Sepulchre from the 
hands of Mohammedans, the capture of Constanti¬ 
nople was hailed with delight by Rome. 

Secondly. Through her forced isolation from 
the activity of the Western civilization the East¬ 
ern Church developed a religious character pecu¬ 
liar to herself. Let us for a moment contemplate 
this character. What is the nature of her public 
worship? In this respect she stands in distinct 
contrast to the Western Church. Before giving a 
brief description of the Eastern Churches, let us 
consider some of the more salient points of differ¬ 
ence between the Eastern and Western Churches. 


PRESENT STATE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 229 

The Eastern Church believes that the Holy 
Spirit proceeds only from the Father ; the Western 
Church teaches that the Spirit proceeds from the 
Son and from the Father. 

The Eastern Church adopted the title of Ortho¬ 
dox, the Western preferred the title of Catholic: 
both titles illustrating their peculiar character, 
the former enacting creeds and the latter disci¬ 
pline. 

The theology of the Eastern Church is specula¬ 
tive, while that of the Western Church is prac¬ 
tical. 

In the administration of the communion the 
laity as well as clergy participate in both kinds 
contrary to the practice of the Western Church. 

The Eastern Church is conservative while the 
Western Church is flexible and progressive. 

The Eastern Church is more considerate both 
to the laity and clergy; the Western Church is ex¬ 
acting. 

In the Eastern Church the reading of the Scrip¬ 
tures by the common people has never been for¬ 
bidden ; the Western Church denied this privilege 
to her children. 

The Eastern Church discriminates between the 
graven image and the painted picture of a saint, 
and uses only the latter, while the Western Church 
does not regard any distinction. 

The Eastern Church has never claimed a direct 
apostolic succession, an absolute power, or infalli¬ 
bility, as claimed by the popes of Rome. 

In the Eastern Church the Eucharist is per- 


230 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


formed secretly, while in the Western Church it is 
celebrated openly. 

In the Eastern Church the clergy hold an infe¬ 
rior position to the Government, while the West¬ 
ern Church claims superiority over the Govern¬ 
ment and many times has secured its assistance 
for the promotion of the church. 

In the Eastern Church many of the doctrines 
and usages are not sanctioned by general councils, 
while in the Roman-catholic Church every doctrine 
is sanctioned and prescribed by the general coun¬ 
cils and made a necessary article of faith. 

Description of the Greek Church. The Rev. 
George Constantine, D. D., of Smyrna, a Greek 
Protestant divine, writes on this point to the “ Mis¬ 
sionary Herald 

“ The worship of the Greek Church consists 
chiefly in the use of the liturgy, with many forms 
and ceremonies, and with much chanting of 
prayers and hymns. The interior of the church 
edifice is divided into two sections: the Holy 
Place, where the altar stands, reserved for the 
priests, and the other portion occupied by the 
people. There is on the people’s side a double 
chorus who sing and chant responsively. There 
are no seats and there is no instrumental music, 
and that because the Latin Church has both. The 
priest from the day of his consecration is denied 
the privilege of cutting his hair or his beard, while 
the priests of the Latin Church do both. The peo¬ 
ple during the chanting of the liturgy express 
their assent to the prayers of the priests and to the 


PRESENT STATE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 231 

hymns of the choristers by crossing themselves, 
but in a manner wholly different from that prac¬ 
tised in the Latin Church, in order that they may 
be seen to differ. The people, through the liturgy, 
are called by officiating clergymen every Sunday 
to come forward and partake of the communion: 
but no one presents himself, nor do the priests ex¬ 
pect any one. The people generally commune 
three times a year, at the close of the three gen¬ 
eral fasts. One ends with the Nativity, another 
with Easter, and a third with the commemoration 
of the Virgin.” 

Description of the Armenian Church. The public 
worship of the Armenian Church, another branch 
of the Eastern Church, is worthy of our attention. 
These churches in the cities have generally a 
chapel on each side of the main building. Each of 
the chapels contains a small altar. The Holy Eu¬ 
charist is generally celebrated on the large altar, 
which is in the main building. A large curtain 
hanging to the floor conceals the great altar. The 
altar is divided into two parts by curtains. The 
bishop or priest, who celebrates the Eucharist, 
stands inside the small curtain. 

The Armenian Church worship, as compared 
with that of the Greek Church, is simple. While 
in the former the pictures of the apostles and 
other saints are very few and hung high, so as to 
prevent the people from worshipping or kissing 
them, in the latter the churches are full of pic¬ 
tures. The Greeks enter the church kissing one 
or more pictures, while in the Armenian churches 


232 LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 

many enter and depart without kissing any pic¬ 
ture. During the winter there is no fire, no pews 
or chairs, and no music. The church is matted or 
carpeted, and the people bring their small rugs for 
seats. As a prevailing, or rather Oriental custom, 
men and women do not worship together. The 
women’s department is separate. There is a gal¬ 
lery for them. Because the services begin before 
sunrise and last a couple of hours on Sunday, and 
because the congregation come to the church with¬ 
out taking any breakfast, therefore the people 
come and depart at any time, without waiting for 
the services to close at the church. Very few re¬ 
main at the church to receive the benediction. 
The people do not join in singing during the wor¬ 
ship. The Nicene creed is, however, participated 
in by all the worshippers. The people keep their 
caps on in the church, but upon rising for the read¬ 
ing of the Gospels they are removed. 

MANNER OF PREACHING BY THE ARMENIAN BISHOP. 

Generally speaking, preaching is regarded as 
subordinate to the church service. It is not there¬ 
fore strange to see, during the preaching, not a 
few of the people leave the church. Very few con¬ 
gregations have a sermon every Sabbath. There 
are people also in towns and small cities who do 
not hear any sermon during the whole year. In 
Constantinople there are forty Armenian churches, 
but half of them are without proper preachers. 
Though the church services are carried on in the 
ancient, now unintelligible language, the sermons 



SHEFKET PASHA, THE MILITARY DICTATOR OF CONSTAN¬ 
TINOPLE, AND HIS LIEUTENANTS. 







PRESENT STATE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 233 

are delivered in modern Armenian and Turkish, 
and are easily understood. The bishop preaches 
in his sacerdotal robes. A majestic staff, an em¬ 
blem of the shepherd’s staff, is in his hand. He 
preaches with great solemnity, and by his Oriental 
gesticulation attracts the close attention and admi¬ 
ration of the congregation. He does not use man¬ 
uscript or notes. His text is selected from the 
Scriptures, and the sermon is elaborately illustra¬ 
ted by the history and biography of the prophets, 
apostles, and church fathers. The sermons are 
long, especially on Holy Days. The bishop preach¬ 
es at the main altar, and he sits occasionally, dur¬ 
ing the sermon, in his chair. This is surrounded 
by a certain number of priests, ready always to 
serve him during his sitting down and rising up. 

EXTRACTS FROM AN ARMENIAN BISHOP’S SERMON. 

One of my friends at Rodosto sent to me the 
following extracts, which I translated. I hope 
that these will serve to show the character and 
style of the preaching of the Armenian bishops. 

The bishop upon the occasion of a national 
feast said, “ Our Church Fathers, St. Gregory Illu¬ 
minator, his sons and grandsons, and Saints Sahag 
and Mesrob, were all married men. These latter 
translated the Bible into the Armenian language 
and instructed their children in the Word of God. 
When the celibacy of clergymen was introduced 
in the Armenian Church the religious life de¬ 
clined .... The Bible was translated into the 
Armenian language by our fathers, but the price 


234 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


being five dollars, it is not accessible to the people. 
Why then do we not have a society to publish the 
Bible and sell it cheaply, so that every one may 
read it?” 

On another occasion the bishop spoke of the 
superiority and the necessity of the Bible: “If I 
had been rich I would have brought the Gospel 
from Constantinople and have presented it to each 
one of you. If you or your friends go to Constanti¬ 
nople, bring back with you the Gospel, which can 
be purchased for twenty cents (the Gospel here 
referred to is published by the American Bible 
Society), and read often the Word of God, for our 
power and life depend upon it.” 

THE ABYSSINIAN CHURCH, HER HISTORY, ETC. 

Abyssinia, known to the ancients as Ethiopia, 
is a rich, mountainous district of eastern Africa, 
its population being about five millions. The peo¬ 
ple were converted to Christianity in the fourth 
century, when Athanasius was Bishop of Alex¬ 
andria. The church had been for centuries in obliv¬ 
ion when discovered in the fourteenth century by 
John II., king of Portugal. Ignatius Loyola tried to 
convert the church to the Catholic faith. He sent 
bishops and Jesuits to Abyssinia, but without suc¬ 
cess. A second Catholic mission started near the 
end of the sixteenth century, but the missionaries 
were driven out of the country after they caused a 
civil war. Pope Clement XI. sent out German mis¬ 
sionaries in the beginning of the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury, who enjoyed the favor of the king; but as 


PRESENT STATE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 235 

soon as the native priests understood, they raised a 
rebellion, dethroned the king, and condemned the 
missionaries to be stoned. So the Abyssinian 
Church preserved her religious tenets against the 
Roman-catholic Church. 

The church believes in infant baptism, admin¬ 
istered to their sons on the fourteenth day after 
birth, and to their daughters on the eighteenth 
day. The priests partake of the communion every 
day, the laity either on the Sabbath or from time 
to time. Five deacons (who are very young, al¬ 
most children) are to be present during the ad¬ 
ministration of the communion. 

They do not trust in purgatory, but believe 
that all go to hell, and the archangel Michael de¬ 
scends to hell and looses the chains and sends 
believers to heaven. Fasting is regarded as the 
essence of religion, therefore their fasts are very 
long and numerous. About nine months of the 
year they abstain from every species of animal 
food with the exception of fish, though not a few 
abstain from that too. 

The candidate for priesthood is ordained by 
the bishop, if he merely knows the alphabet or if 
he can repeat a few prayers, so ignorant are the 
clergy. The priests are allowed to marry previous 
to receiving the rite of ordination. Public preach¬ 
ing is unknown in the churches. 

The religion of Abyssinia, it may be said, is de¬ 
rived from the Jewish dispensation. In their form 
of worship Judaism seems to predominate. Some 
of the rites of the Mosaic law are rigidly observed. 


236 LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 

Meats prohibited by Moses are abstained from. 
Brothers marry the wives of their deceased bro¬ 
thers. Saturday and Sunday both are held sacred. 

The first Protestant missionaries were sent to 
Abyssinia in 1826 by the Church Missionary So¬ 
ciety. 

Rev. Messrs. Gobat, Isenberg, and others were 
the pioneers of this mission, but were obliged to 
leave the field by tyrannical persecutions. It was 
under the persecution of King Theodorus that 
some of the missionaries were imprisoned several 
years, who were released by the expedition from 
England under Lord Napier in 1869. Kings The¬ 
odorus and John are dead now, and it is hoped that 
under the present political circumstances Abys¬ 
sinia will be more accessible to the missionaries, 
and that the re-opening of missions among these 
degenerated people of Ethiopia is not very far 
off. 

THE NESTORIAN CHURCH. 

The Nestorian Christians live within the in¬ 
accessible mountains and glens of the Province of 
Kurdistan. Nestorius, the founder of this sect, 
was a native of Syria and a presbyter at Antioch. 
“ He was esteemed,” says Neander, “and was cele¬ 
brated on account of his life and the impressive 
fervor of his preaching.” He became Patriarch of 
Constantinople in 428. After three years his an¬ 
tagonists accused him of heresy, first in denying 
that Mary was the mother of God, and second in 
holding that there were two persons as well as 
two natures of Christ. Nestorius denied emphati- 


PRESENT STATE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 237 

cally both charges against him, but his jealous 
antagonists succeeded in deposing him from the 
patriarchate, and banished him first to Arabia and 
then to Lybia. He died in Egypt. 

He left many friends behind him who denied 
the fairness of his treatment and remained at¬ 
tached to him. Being subject to severe persecu¬ 
tions within the limits of the Roman Empire, their 
number diminished rapidly. But “ after they had 
obtained a fixed residence in Persia in the sixth 
century, and had located the head of the sect at 
Seleucia, they were as successful as they were in¬ 
dustrious in disseminating their doctrines in the 
countries lying without the Roman Empire.” * 

The Nestorians had schools in Edessa, Nisibis, 
Seleucia, and other places, in a very flourishing 
state. In the sixth century the church was more 
aggressive in mission work than any other church 
in Christendom. They diffused Christianity from 
the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, and with 
great zeal preached the gospel to the Medes, Ara¬ 
bians, Indians, and Tartars. These self-denying 
Christians went to give the gospel to the people 
of China, where many became Christians. 

“ In the ninth century they were so numer¬ 
ous,” says Dr. Neale, “ it may be doubted whether 
Innocent III. possessed more spiritual power than 
the (Nestorian) Patriarch of the city of the Ca¬ 
liphs.” 

At present the Nestorians do not number more 
than a hundred thousand, who are settled in the 

* Mosheim’s “Church History.” 


238 LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 

plain of Oroomiah, in the western part of Persia. 
The persecution raised against them by Tamer¬ 
lane and others reduced their numbers and 
crushed the power of their churches. In 1842 
several thousands of them, men, women, and chil¬ 
dren, were massacred by the Kurds. 

Their religious belief and practices are more 
simple and Scriptural than those of the other 
branches of the Eastern Church. They do not 
practise auricular confession nor hold to the doc¬ 
trine of purgatory. They do not call Mary “ the 
mother of God.” They have neither relics of 
saints nor pictures in their churches. The sign 
of the cross is used in baptism and in prayer. 
The cross which is engraved over the low en¬ 
trance of each church is kissed by the people who 
enter it. Their priests carry with them a small 
silver cross, which is kissed by the people. They 
have many days of fasting. The language which 
is used in their service is ancient Syriac, which is 
not intelligible to the congregation. The priests 
marry, but the bishops cannot. 

The Rev. Asahel Grant, M. D., one of the 
pioneer missionaries to the Nestorians, says, “ God 
had in great mercy preserved me through many 
perils, and brought me among a people who had 
received the gospel from the apostles and imme¬ 
diate disciples of our Saviour and had preserved 
its doctrines with a great degree of purity; and 
though there was painful evidence of a great want 
of spiritual life, I was encouraged to hope that 
some almost smothered sparks of vital piety were 


PRESENT STATE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 239 

still burning upon those altars. I could not but 
regard it as a branch of the true church of God, 
though immersed in the darkness of gross igno¬ 
rance, superstition, and spiritual torpor, yet not of 
death. But there was still much in their character 
and circumstances of deep and lively interest. My 
heart was drawn towards them in warm affection, 
and seldom have I commemorated the dying love 
of Christ under circumstances more deeply inter¬ 
esting than among these primitive Christians in 
the wild mountains of ancient Assyria.” 

MARONITE, JACOBITE, AND COPTIC CHURCHES. 

Maronites are called after one of their bishops, 
Maron. This people are subject to the Pope of 
Rome, though a good many of them regard that 
church with aversion and abhorrence. Their prin¬ 
cipal habitation is on Mt. Lebanon. They elect 
their Patriarch. Their priests marry but once. 
The communion is administered in both kinds. 

The Jacobites , whose number is about two hun¬ 
dred thousand, live in the neighborhood of the 
Euphrates and Tigris. They have a Patriarch. 
A monk named Jacobus, during the persecution 
of Justinian, with great zeal and activity became 
the leader of the Monophysites. The sect there¬ 
fore is called after his name, Jacobites. 

Coptics . The Coptic or Egyptian Church is very 
primitive. They give the kiss of peace to one 
another, and practise, at conferring ordination, 
the act of breathing. Their Patriarch resides at 
Cairo, and has about fifteen bishops under his 


240 LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 

control. The church is Monophysite. The church 
government is Episcopal. They reject the use of 
images in their churches, but are very fond of 
pictures. The church service is Egyptian, a lan¬ 
guage which is seldom understood by the priests 
and never by the congregation. They have nu¬ 
merous convents and practise long and rigid fast¬ 
ings. There are Catholic and Protestant mission¬ 
aries laboring among these sects of the Eastern 
Church. 

Thirdly. The theology and literature of the 
Eastern Church are influenced by her position. 
The first five centuries were the golden period of 
Eastern Christianity. It was during this time that 
Christian literature developed and the great theo¬ 
logians appeared whose writings are magnificent 
and immortal monuments of Eastern Christianity. 
But after that glorious period there are but few 
names which attract attention. It is almost im¬ 
possible to find such names as Anselm, Abelard, 
Thomas Aquinas, Bacon, Pascal, Descartes, or 
the equally honored names of the present cen¬ 
tury. Consequently the Oriental Church is not 
able to defend Christianity against infidelity, her 
theologians are so inferior. It is a sorrowful 
fact that the Oriental Church is too proud to 
accept aid from the scholarship of the West. 
The pride of the Greek Church especially sur¬ 
passes the other branches of the Eastern Church. 
The Greek Church hates the Western Church. 
She regards herself as the Orthodox Church; 
all other churches are heretical. The Greek 


PRESENT STATE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 

Church imagines, because of her wonderful lan¬ 
guage, her glorious philosophers and immortal 
Christian Fathers, that she is superior to the 
Western Church. This misconception by the 
Greek Church is a great obstacle to her develop¬ 
ment. As a fact it may be said that while the 
Western Church always delights in receiving ben¬ 
efits from the Eastern Church, the latter keeps 
herself aloof, disdaining all proffered aid from 
whatever source. An example of the former state¬ 
ment is familiar to all. Several years ago when 
Bryennios, the Bishop of Nicomedia, Asia Minor, 
found the “ Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," it 
was translated and circulated both in Europe and 
America. (The Bishop is called “ Doctor of Di¬ 
vinity ” by the West.) And because of this breadth 
and liberality of her scholarship I do not make 
any mistake in saying that to-day there are a 
great many scholars in the West who are better 
acquainted with the history and literature of East¬ 
ern Christianity than the Eastern scholars and di¬ 
vines themselves. While the immortal names of 
Chrysostom, Origin, Athanasius, and other Eastern 
Church Fathers are perfectly known among West¬ 
ern scholars, on the contrary ancient names and 
famous modern works of the West are strange to 
the students in the Eastern seminaries. The pro¬ 
gressive spirit which so eminently characterizes 
the investigations of the theologians in the West 
is sadly lacking in the East. 

Before the final separation there was a time 
when all the learned men in the East might be 

16 


Lift In the Orient. 


242 LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 

found among the clergymen; now the people sur¬ 
pass the clergymen in intellectual power. If there 
are some distinguished bishops, they are the fruits 
of the West. The seminaries lack the depth of 
learning and zeal of the West. They are indeed 
lacking in the spirit of the times. 

The Eastern Church Unable to Defend Herself. 
On account of these various causes, the Eastern 
Church became unable to defend Christianity 
from the shower of arrows from modern skepti¬ 
cism. I recall an illustration of this. 

When fifteen years ago an Armenian from 
Smyrna, in Asia Minor, wrote an infidel book 
called “Method,” the first of its kind written in 
the Armenian language,it shook the pillars of the 
Armenian Church to its foundation. The clergy, 
with rare exceptions, had never seen a skeptical 
work. The infidel thoughts and arguments against 
Christianity were new to them. Therefore the 
“ Method ” was unanswered. Hundreds and per¬ 
haps thousands read this work. Oh! who can tell 
how many young men became infidels! Thanks 
be to the late Dr. G. W. Wood, the veteran mis¬ 
sionary of the American Board, who replied with 
his Christian “Method.” The whole nation felt 
and acknowledged their indebtedness to the ven¬ 
erable missionary. 

Oriental nations as well as the churches about 
thirty or forty years ago were free from foreign 
influence. The door of Turkey was not so widely 
open to Europeans as it is now. Since that time 
the people of the larger and maritime cities have 


PRESENT STATE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 243 

come in contact with European civilization and cus¬ 
toms. Now the French language is more general 
among the young men than any other European 
language. There are thousands of young men, 
Greek and Armenian, whose libraries are full of 
infidel books. Renan’s “Vie de Jesus” is read 
more earnestly than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
Oh! when I think about the present condition of 
young men, my heart fails me. Infidelity and 
carelessness increase among them. Few attend the 
church services. Who can foretell what will be 
the condition of the Eastern churches after one 
or two generations ? The clergy are not ready to 
take an aggressive position. Who will ? 

Fourthly . Another feature of the Eastern 
Church is the stationary attitude of her mission 
work. That the Eastern Church was the first 
missionary power was shown at the beginning of 
this chapter. Now her condition is entirely dif¬ 
ferent from her former zeal and enthusiasm in the 
work of evangelization. The Church is strictly 
conservative. There is no Propaganda, Domini¬ 
can order, Jesuit missionary, or missionary board 
in the bosom of the Eastern Church. During the 
past two centuries the Roman-catholic Church, and 
during the present century the Protestant church¬ 
es, both in Europe and America, have sent their 
sons and daughters throughout the world for its 
evangelization. Alas! neither the zeal of the 
Roman-catholic Church nor the enthusiasm of the 
Protestant churches has aroused the Eastern 
Church from her lethargy. 


244 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


The last commission of our Saviour in the Ar¬ 
menian and Greek Churches is indeed observed 
literally , that is certain. I always look with great 
admiration upon the procession of the Armenian 
bishops, priests, and deacons, who, in their sacer¬ 
dotal robes, turn to the East, West, North, and 
South to bless the world with the gospel. I was 
one Easter morning in the Greek Metropolitan 
Church in Adrianople. Several priests stood at 
the different corners of the church and chanted 
the twenty-eighth chapter of Matthew in Greek, 
Armenian, Turkish, etc., thus proclaiming the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ through all the na¬ 
tionalities and tongues; and this is what they un¬ 
derstand by preaching the gospel to every crea¬ 
ture. Do they not need instruction ? 

III. RIVAL DENOMINATIONS OF THE EASTERN 

CHURCH. 

Present Relation . The denominations of the 
Eastern Church, as some of them have been briefly 
described, may be classified as follows: 

The Greek, Russian, Bulgarian, Servian, Wal- 
lachian, and Moldavian Churches, which are called 
Orthodox. The Armenian or Illuminitarian, Abys¬ 
sinian, Nestorian, Maronite, Jacobite, and Coptic 
Churches, which are called schismatics by the 
Orthodox Church. 

Rivalry Among the Denominations. The two 
great denominations of the Eastern Church have 
over 90,000,000 membership. All baptized chil¬ 
dren are legal members of the Eastern Church. 


PRESENT STATE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 245 

The Russian Church has a larger membership than 
all the other denominations combined. There is no 
Christian harmony and sympathy among these 
denominations and nationalities; and it may be 
said that rivalry and enmity exist between them. 
There are more divisions or denominations in the 
bosom of the Western Protestants than in the 
Eastern Church; but how great is the difference 
in the spirit of the two churches! Several years 
ago, in the London Missionary Conference, the 
representatives of different denominations, both 
in America and in Europe, came together to 
consult and to pray for the great cause. Every 
year about 600 seminary students of different de¬ 
nominations come as delegates to our Inter-Semi¬ 
nary Missionary Alliance for mutual inspiration 
and help. There were about thirty denomina¬ 
tions represented in Philadelphia at the National 
Convention of the Young People’s Christian En¬ 
deavor Society. In America a Baptist minister 
exchanges with a Presbyterian minister, and a 
Presbyterian with a Methodist. Such denomina¬ 
tional comity does not exist between the denom¬ 
inations of the Eastern Church. There is only 
one place, the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where 
the representatives of different denominations 
come together to worship. The Greek, Arme¬ 
nian, and Syrian Churches have each a share in it; 
but, alas! this union of proprietorship, instead of 
producing a corresponding unity of Christian feel¬ 
ing and bringing them into Christian harmony 
and sympathy, animates and inspires every year 


246 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


greater hatred and enmity between them. How 
great was my joy, when preaching in Adrianople, 
to look upon the faces of Armenian, Greek, and 
Bulgarian brethren who came to worship the 
Lord under the same roof in Christian love! I 
continually lament the rivalry which exists be¬ 
tween the denominations of the Eastern Church. 
Their animosities are a reproach to Christianity. 
Their enmity is old and deep-rooted. It is the 
enmity of centuries. What power can reconcile 
them ? There is but one way: through the pure 
doctrines of the gospel. 

Future Relation. Come, oh come that glorious 
day when all the denominations of the Eastern 
Church shall come under the influence of the 
great Reformation, when all enmity shall dis¬ 
appear and Christian harmony be established 
among them. Oh! come that glorious day when 
not only the Eastern rival churches will be recon¬ 
ciled, but the two great branches of Christendom 
will be united in Christian bonds of love, so that 
the East will stretch forth her hand to the West, 
and the West to the East, in brotherly love. Then 
will the united Church move forward, singing, 


Onward, Christian soldiers. 
Marching as to war, 
With the cross of Jesus 
Going on before. 

Christ, the royal Master, 
Leads against the foe; 
Forward into battle, 

See, his banners go. 


PRESENT STATE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 247 


Like a mighty army 

Moves the church of God; 

Brothers, we are treading 
Where the saints have trod; 

We are not divided, 

All one body we— 

One in hope and doctrine. 

One in charity. 

Crowns and thrones may perish, 
Kingdoms rise and wane, 

But the church of Jesus 
Constant will remain; 

Gates of hell can never 
’Gainst that church prevail; 

We have Christ’s own promise. 
And that cannot fail. 

Onward, then, ye people, 

Join our happy throng, 

Blend with ours your voices 
In the triumph-song; 

Glory, laud, and honor 
Unto Christ the King; 

This through countless ages 
Men and angels sing. 


S. BARING-GOULD. 


248 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


XII. 

CRESCENT AGAINST THE CROSS. 

% 

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MASSACRES. 

The recent massacres in Adana and vicinity 
cannot be described adequately either by pen or 
by tongue. But in order to give some faint idea 
about the affair I will say nothing, but let the eye¬ 
witnesses tell the awful story as they know how. 
I will ask the reader only to remember that the 
revolution in Constantinople by the reactionarists 
and the terrible human butchery in Adana and 
vicinity occurred about the same time. 

The Rev. Mr. Trowbridge, for many years a 
missionary of the American Board, writing from 
Adana April 15, 1909, gives the accurate facts 
and full accounts concerning the massacres and 
the shooting of two American missionaries. He 
says . 

“ Fighting had begun the previous day between 
the Moslems and Armenians, with many casual¬ 
ties on both sides, and at night incendiaries be¬ 
gan their work. During the long hours of dark¬ 
ness there were frequent fusillades from roofs, 
parapets, minarets, and windows. The sky was 
lighted up by the flames of burning houses, which 
were reflected far out into the country. At day¬ 
light it became evident that the Girls’ School of 
the Adana Mission was in danger from fire. 


THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MASSACRES. 249 

Flames from other buildings began to lick the 
windows and doors, and the missionaries carried 
pails of w r ater and splashed the walls. It was 
while they were at this work that Maurer and 
Rogers were shot down by Moslem looters. They 
only lived a few minutes after the shooting. The 
bodies of the slain missionaries lay where they 
fell in the street until the British Vice-Consul rode 
up, with a squad of Turkish soldiers, and brought 
them into the mission school building. They 
died at their post as good soldiers of Jesus 
Christ. . . . 

“ The Armenians fought desperately in self-de¬ 
fence. . . . The Adana Government acquiesced, 
if not actually participated, in the cruel and in- 
discriminating assault by fire and rifle and sword 
upon the whole Armenian community, including 
our Protestant congregation, which as a body had 
been wholly loyal to the Government. . . . 
Horsemen (Turkish troops) were coming in at in¬ 
tervals from the outlying towns and villages to 
report to the military authorities as follows: 

‘ Hamidieh is finished,’ ‘ Osmanieh is finished,’ 
meaning that the Armenian population there had 
been put to the sword. The Moslem minarets 
in Adana were occupied early on the first day of 
the massacres by regular Turkish troops, who 
kept up a regular fusillade of the Armenian quar¬ 
ters with their death-dealing Mauser and Martini 
rifles. No protection was furnished to the mission 
from the Turkish mob, which was now parading 
the streets. When the fanatical crowd reached 


250 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


the Mission Girls’ School the leaders were de¬ 
manding the surrender of all Armenian men, 
promising safety to the women and children; but 
it was too evident that a general massacre was in¬ 
tended. 

“Meanwhile all the shops in the market-place 
had been looted. The mob continued to grow, 
and its members were brandishing their weapons. 
A large wooden house adjoining the Girls’ School 
was in flames, and the missionaries had to expose 
themselves to deadly peril to save the school. 
The butchery in other sections of the city went on 
for four days. One party of Armenians, men and 
women, had been promised safe conduct to the 
railway station. On the way the Turks cried out, 
‘ Let the men stand apart from the women and 
children.’ They then shot down the men in 
cold blood. Other Armenians, begging refuge 
were taken to the market-place and slain. Some 
Moslems brought in Christian prisoners from near¬ 
by villages, and were reprimanded sharply with 
the words: ‘ Why did you not finish these giaours 
[unbelievers] in the villages? Why have you 
brought them here?’ Fifty Christian villagers 
were thrown into the river above Adana and 
drowned. One thousand refugees were housed in 
the Protestant church. They had lost everything. 
Little babies were born in that helpless crowd 
amid all the dirt and squalor and the suffering.” 

“The massacres all began on the same day, 
Wednesday, April 14,” wrote Rev. Dr. Christie, of 
Tarsus, “showing, even were there no other proof. 


THE TRUTH ABOUT TIIE MASSACRES. 25 I 

that they were inaugurated by telegraphic orders 
from Adana, probably from Constantinople. The 
only places where the Christians took up arms for 
a short time to defend themselves were Adana, 
Hadjin, and near the battlefield of Issus. The 
statement by Turkish officials that there was an 
Armenian insurrection, that the Turks were mas¬ 
sacred and houses burned by the Christians, are 
simply lies.” 

Dr. Trowbridge wrote on April 21: “Our 
hearts are sad indeed to-night! We have received 
news of the massacre of twenty preachers and 
pastors of our Cilicia Union, who were on their 
journey to annual meeting. Professor Devonian 
was also shot to death in Osmanieh, where, with 
eight of the pastors, he tried to escape from the 
burning church, which had been set on fire by the 
Turkish mob, and all those pastors—the chosen 
leaders of our field work and our dearest friends— 
perished! Twenty of our churches are now or¬ 
phans! We must have good surgeons and trained 
nurses—not one or two, but a score. There are 
already over 300 wounded on our lists, and an 
average of four wounds to each sufferer. The 
best doctors here have lost all their instruments 
and supplies in the plundered homes and shops.” 

“It is impossible to say how many have been 
killed, but I would think that 25,000 to 30,000 
may be stated as a probability for the province. 
The authenticated stories that come in show that 
the tornado was fierce and bloody and fiery. 
There are a great many Armenians remaining, but 


252 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


they form a prostrate, penniless, perishing nation. 

I think that 15,000 hungry people in this city is 
not a large estimate, with numbers increasing day 
by day by refugees from the district. For these 
15,000 people, if we issue 100 drams of flour a 
day, we will need $500 a day. Taking that as' a 
basis of calculation, you will see that $1,000 a 
day is a small estimate. It is barley harvest, and 
the Christians can’t reap their fields.” 

On April 24 Dr. Christie, president of St. 
Paul’s Institute, Tarsus, wrote: “I doubt if ever 
a massacre equal in atrocities to this has been 
known in history. . . . Among the wounded there 
are multitudes of them (women and children); 
we hear of a pastor and his family, seven people, 
burned together in their house; hosts of younger 
women have been assaulted and carried away to 
harems, and their names changed to Moslem ones. 
Christian villages like Osmanieh, Baghche, Hami- 
dieh, Kara Tash, Kristian Keoy, Kozolook have 
been literally wiped out; of five or six hundred 
people in each, only eighty or so are left, nearly 
all women and children. It is the same in the 
cliftliks (farms); there are hundreds of these on 
this wide and fertile plain; in every one that we 
have heard of in the neighborhood of Tarsus or 
Adana there has been unsparing slaughter of the 
Christian workers, even the Greeks and Syrians 
dying as martyrs with the Armenians. 

“ The annual meeting was to have been held in 
Adana, so the pastors and delegates of the 
churches were on the roads to the north and the 



THE TURKISH GOVERNOR WHO PERMITTED THE MASSACRE AT ADANA, 

ORPHANS MADE BY THE MASSACRE. 



















THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MASSACRES. 253 

east of that city when the trouble began. We 
have now the names of twenty-seven killed, with 
the particulars of their deaths. Twenty-two 
churches are left pastorless; it is a fearful blow! 
Our two missionaries, Maurer and Rogers, bring 
the number up to twenty-nine. Here are the 
names: 

“ Henry Maurer of Hadjin, Daniel M. Rogers 
of Tarsus and Hadjin, Professor Sarkis Levonian 
of Aintab, Rev. Hagop Sinijian of Aintab, Rev. 
Setrak Ekmekjian of Oorfa, Rev. George Sham- 
mas of Oorfa, Rev. Zechariah Bedrossian of Gar- 
moosh, Rev. Giragos Jamgotchian of Severek, 
Rev. Nerses Kooyoomjian of Adiaman, Rev. 
Nazaret Heshenian of Marash; delegates Noosk- 
hajian, Hagop Ashjian and Salatian of Marash; 
Rev. Hagop Koondakjian of Hasan Beyli, Rev. 
Sdepan Hohannesian of Kharne, Preacher Takvoor 
of Baghche; also the following acting pastors: 
Keupelian of Osmanieh, Boyajian of Shar, Sefer- 
ian of Yev6 Bakan, Topalian of Fek6, Malian of 
Sis, Kayayan of Elbistan, Siyahian of Kars, 
Markar of Hamidieh, Albarian of Gehen, Kharsian 
of Cucucus (to which Chrysostom was banished), 
Soghemonian of Hadjin, Rev. Istilion of Hadjin, 
and Rev. Kevork Kassarjian of Fundajak. Thir¬ 
teen ordained men, eleven preachers (acting pas¬ 
tors) not ordained, five delegates. 

“ Some of the soldiers afterward told us they 
had orders to kill the Armenians. We saw them 
firing from minarets and in the street at Christian 
houses. They persuaded nearly a hundred Arme- 


2 54 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


nians at one place to put themselves under their 
protection; they took them along the street to 
an open place, then ordered the women to stand 
apart from the men and shot down every one of 
the latter. Some of the women were killed, and 
many wounded, while trying to protect their 
loved ones. 

“In the Keupeli Khan were gathered over 
sixty men from Hadjin. The soldiers made them 
come out one by one, and killed them, the by¬ 
standers clapping their hands as each one fell. 
In this way also our martyred pastors were slain 
at Osmanieh. If no retribution is dealt out for 
all this—if no sufficient security is given that 
things like these shall never again occur—then 
every Christian ought to get out of this country 
just as soon as possible. There will be many a 
death from famine unless my funds are increased. 
Our yard looks like the prison-pen at Anderson- 
ville. When the captain of the French ship came 
in with his officers and saw the crowd, he held up 
his hands and said, ‘My God! This is terrible! 
Where do all these people sleep ? ’ ‘The men 
wander around all night, captain,’ we replied, ‘try¬ 
ing to keep warm, while the women and children 
sleep, many of them without beds, in the rooms be¬ 
longing to the school. In the daytime the men have 
their turn, but most of them simply curl up some¬ 
where in the sunshine outside.’ Five of our boys, 
home for the Easter vacation, have been killed. 
All the teachers and students have proved them¬ 
selves capable Christian men during these troubles. 


THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MASSACRES. 255 

“Adana, April 24. Word has come that the en¬ 
tire Armenian quarter of Tarsus has been burned. 
Eight hundred houses destroyed! Misses Eliza¬ 
beth and Mary Webb have purchased cloth, so 
that all the schoolgirls and teachers are busy mak¬ 
ing up clothing and bandages for the sufferers. 
The calmness and faith of these two American 
women in the midst of threatening perils has had 
a wonderful effect upon the schoolgirls. There 
has been no screaming and no panic even when 
rifle bullets tore into the building and the glare 
of the conflagrations made the night lurid. Miss 
Wallis has charge of one of the emergency hospi¬ 
tals and Miss Elizabeth is superintending another. 
The Sisters of Charity are serving in the other 
two. Mr. W. Nesbitt Chambers is recognized by 
every one as the head of the relief work. The two 
gifts already received for relief have been ex¬ 
hausted and thousands of the poor are suffering 
from hunger. We earnestly pray that large funds 
may soon arrive.” 

A shocking incident of the persecution is re¬ 
lated in a letter from Sis, dated April 28: 

“Seven Protestant Armenian preachers, two 
delegates and three Armenian ladies, while on 
their way to the yearly Synodical meeting, com¬ 
ing from Hadjin for Adana, passed through Sis on 
the morning of April 15. Shortly after their de¬ 
parture, word reached Sis of the massacre at 
Adana the previous day, and a horseman was sect 
to call the party back, but he reached them only 
when they had arrived at the village called Sagh 


life in the orient. 


256 

Gechid. Here they went to the house of the gov¬ 
ernor (Mudir) and of another principal man called 
Haji Bey, who promised to protect them. On 
the following day, however, these treacherous men 
and other Moslems fell upon the party from Had- 
jin and Sis, and upon seventy-eight other Arme¬ 
nians found in the place, in all ninety-two. Strip¬ 
ping them of all valuables, they led them out one 
by one and butchered them like sheep, adding 
abuse to death in the case of the poor women. 
The wife of the governor, looking from the bal¬ 
cony of her house, smiled upon those who perpe¬ 
trated these dreadful deeds! The bodies of the 
victims were carted away and thrown over a preci¬ 
pice. The wife of the pastor of the Tekke church, 
however, and one of the travelers from Hadjin, 
in spite of wounds, recovered their senses in the 
night and, crawling through the fields and woods, 
reached Sis next day. Thus there are two living 
witnesses of the massacre. For treachery, sav¬ 
agery and bestiality this massacre passes belief.” 

Another missionary, writing under date of April 
28, supplies some later details of the massacre of 
Armenian pastors. He says: 

“ The pastors and delegates, coming from 
Marash, reached Osmanieh, one day from Adana, 
on the evening of April 14. The next morning 
they went to the pastor’s house, and soon soldiers 
came and took away the women and girls by 
force. The preachers and delegates, seeing that 
fire had been set to the parsonage, tried to flee, 
but were all shot dead. With one exception, all 


HOW THE KHARNE MARTYRS HIED. 2 57 

were married and had children. The destruction 
of life and property throughout that region is 
dreadful in the extreme. In Osmanieh, Baghche, 
Hasan Beyli, Kuruk Han, Antioch and other 
places, the Turks have killed all the Armenian 
men and boys they could catch, have divided up 
the women and girls among themselves and have 
burned their houses, gardens and vineyards. Had 
the mutiny in Constantinople succeeded, the wave 
of destruction might have swept all over Asia 
Minor. It seems like the last stroke of the dying 
monster. 

HOW THE KHARNE MARTYRS DIED. 

Let us read the letter written by an Armenian 
woman in Kharne, the widow of the martyred 
pastor of that place. She writes: 

“On Tuesday, April 13, my dear husband 
started for Adana and the annual meeting. On 
Thursday we had gone to visit some friends in 
our village, when suddenly a boy came running in, 
crying out, ‘ Oh, mother, they say all we Chris¬ 
tians will be massacred!’ His mother fainted. 
When she recovered, we went home. We saw 
large parties of Turks in the streets, apparently 
holding counsel with each other. Half an hour 
afterward the attack began; one house was set 
on fire. Then they rushed to the house of Ekiz 
Oghloo, took away the women and girls, and 
brutally murdered the father and his two sons and 
his brother-in-law; the house was plundered and 
given to the flames, with the dead in it. All over 


258 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


the village the same things were being done. We 
had hidden ourselves in a stable; and as we looked 
through a chink what a scene! The Turks were 
acting like wild beasts; women and children were 
screaming, our men were fleeing, as if the end of 
the world were come, but in vain; they were shot 
down by scores in the streets; the houses were on 
fire; the sheep were bleating, the cattle lowing, as 
if they sympathized with their masters. While 
some of the Turks were killing our men, others 
were breaking into the houses and shops for plun¬ 
der, others were busy setting the empty houses 
on fire. I looked on while eight horse-loads of 
our belongings were taken from the house; but I 
thought my husband was still living, and so had 
comfort, praying as I was all the time. That 
night the Turks found us, and killed a man who 
had taken refuge in the stable. They ordered us 
to give up our money, but we had none to give. 
Then they tried to make us accept Islam; in this 
also they failed. Until morning we were in great 
danger. At dawn we escaped to the house of a 
Turk. From there we looked on while they killed 
all the men and boys of the Poladian family and 
burned the house. Only one woman was slain in 
the village. They kept us, as they said, to be di¬ 
vided up among themselves. 

“ Tozjian (an Armenian) and his son offered a 
Turk named Hadji Bey eighty pounds to save 
them; he took the money, protected them for two 
days, then insisted they should become Moslems, 
and on their refusal killed them. The poor boy 


HOW THE KIIARNE MARTYRS DIED. 259 

and his father, in the face of death, witnessed a 
good confession. 4 How can we deny our Saviour, 
whom we have loved so long ? ’ they said. Both 
of them now belong to the Church on high. Ha- 
gopjan Agha and his son Avedis became martyrs 
after a like refusal to deny Christ; these were not 
the only ones. Oh, my friend, the Turks com¬ 
mitted many outrages which I must not recount. 
Once or twice every day the Turks would come 
and carry away some of the younger women and 
girls. With all our efforts, our crying, our im¬ 
ploring, we could not save them.” 

The second letter was written by a young lady 
of Khame to a friend in Tarsus: 

“ There were fifty people gathered together in 
our house. While we were still singing and pray¬ 
ing the Turks first threw hundreds of stones 
against the house, and at last set it on fire. Then 
we women and children scattered and fled. The 
men were all killed, either then or soon afterward. 
As we ran away we could scarcely get through 
the crowds of Turks in the streets that were 
shooting and looting and burning the houses and 
shops. To save our own lives we threw ourselves 
into the houses of some Turkish aghas; but their 
women thrust us out. At last some had pity on 
us as we were wailing beside their walls and took 
us in for three days. According to what we 
heard from the Turks, Hohannes Tozjian and his 
son Samuel (my fianc£) remained in hiding three 
days; then they were found and killed, having 
refused to accept Islam. The last words of 


26 o 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


Samuel were: * I cannot deny my Saviour; O 
Lord Jesus, into Thy hands I commend my 
spirit.’ Then the cruel men shot him and his 
father. My own dear father witnessed and died 
in the same way. I looked in vain for the body 
of my brother Manoog; his head was all that I 
could find. Without the help that comes through 
prayer, the remembrance of these horrors would 
drive me crazy. My once happy family has been 
smitten to the ground. All our property is in 
the hands of the Turks. I have not even a cup 
from which to take a drink of water; no bread to 
eat, no bed to lie on, no quilt to cover me these 
cold nights in the mountains. The German friends 
rescued us from that intolerable situation. May 
God reward these kind friends of the unfortunate. ’ ’ 

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE ? 

The Outlook , of New York, May, 1909, under 
the above caption published the following: 

“ During the past month many thousands of 
Armenian Christians have been killed and mal¬ 
treated in Asia Minor, their houses and shops 
burned, their farm crops destroyed. In 1894-5 
other thousands of Armenians were likewise mal¬ 
treated. The massacres and outrages fifteen 
years ago occurred in the region near Van, not 
far from the Persian frontier. Last month’s 
massacres occurred in the region about Adana not 
far from the Mediterranean, and that particular 
comer of the Mediterranean where the traveler 
leaves Syria and enters Asia Minor. 


WHO IS RESPONSIBLE ? 


26l 


‘‘As an excuse for the massacres of 1894-5 the 
Turkish Government pointed out the wild, un¬ 
tamed character of the hordes of Kurds who 
dwell in the mountains on the Turko-Persian 
frontier and on the high ridges of Armenia. . . . 

“The Mohammedans of Armenia and of Asia 
Minor may be divided into Turks and Kurds. 
The danger to orderly government has largely 
been from the latter. The Kurds are naturally 
brave and hospitable, with rude feelings of honor; 
but in general they seem now to have degenera¬ 
ted into lawless and treacherous brigands. About 
seventeen years ago, the Turkish Sultan, Abdul 
Hamid, summoned certain Kurdish chiefs to Con¬ 
stantinople, presented them with decorations, 
banners, uniforms, and military titles, and then 
sent them back to organize their tribes into cav¬ 
alry regiments. These exclusively Kurdish troops 
have been an instrument in Abdul Hamid’s hands 
of a cruelty and vengeance which he could not 
obtain from the Regulars. In especial, he used 
them in 1894-5 to crush Armenia. In last month’s 
massacres the Kurds, doubtless inspired ultimately 
by Abdul Hamid, also played a peculiarly sinis¬ 
ter role, because they were farther from their 
homes in the hills and had proportionately less 
excuse for harrying the unoffending dwellers of the 
plains. 

“Thus the fact stands forth all the more 
significantly to us that the killing of the Arme¬ 
nians last month exactly coincided with the Sul¬ 
tan’s revolt at Constantinople in favor of reaction. 


262 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


“Abdul Hamid is now deposed. More than 
any one, we believe, he is responsible for what 
has happened in Armenia. Of course history 
shows that there has always been some apparent 
necessity for foreign intervention in Armenia and 
among the Armenians in Asia Minor. We have 
but to remember the interventions of Nebuchad¬ 
nezzar, of Xerxes and Alexander, of the Romans, 
Parthians, Byzatitines, and Saracens, to realize 
that the Turks themselves had a pretext for their 
own intervention. Doubtless there have always 
been among the inhabitants of Armenia and the 
rest of Asia Minor, as at present, a few reckless, 
irresponsible revolutionists, who are without re¬ 
sources and whose spirit is foreign to the real 
objects and methods of the Armenians as a whole. 
The revolutionists are reported to number not 
more than one in every forty Armenians, and the 
one hot-head has brought destruction upon the 
vast majority of his innocent compatriots by be¬ 
coming just the tool desired by Abdul Hamid, 
namely, an incitement to revolt which could serve 
as a pretext for swift and terrible repression. 

“If Abdul Hamid is primarily responsible for 
the massacres, it is none the less true, we think, 
that the European Powers, especially England, 
are also responsible to a greater degree than is 
generally supposed. The misgovernment of Ar¬ 
menia and Asia Minor has long demanded foreign 
intervention. Indeed, Abdul Hamid himself was 
forced to recognize this, as is shown by the 
Russo-Turkish treaty of 1877, by which he bound 


WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? 


263 


himself to execute effectual reforms in Armenia, 
the Russian troops to remain in the country until 
the reforms were in fair working order. But Eng¬ 
land, suspecting Russian territorial ambitions, in¬ 
sisted that this treaty be submitted to a European 
congress for revision. The other Powers agreed. 
The Congress met the following year at Berlin 
and expunged the Russo-Turkish effectual pro¬ 
vision for Armenian reforms in favor of the sixty- 
first. article of the Treaty of Berlin, signed by the 
Powers, including Turkey, in 1878. This article 
stipulates that—‘ The Sublime Porte undertakes 
to carry out, without further delay, the improve¬ 
ments and reforms demanded by local require¬ 
ments in the provinces inhabited by the Arme¬ 
nians, and to guarantee their security against the 
Circassians and Kurds. It will periodically make 
known the steps taken to this effect to the Powers, 
who will superintend their application.’ In addi¬ 
tion, the Anglo-Turkish Convention, entered into 
at the same time, included these words in its first 
article: ‘His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, prom¬ 
ises to England to introduce necessary reforms, to 
be agreed upon later between the two Powers, 
into the Government, and for the protection of 
the Christian and other subjects of the Porte in 
these territories [the Armenian provinces]; and in 
order to enable England to make necessary pro¬ 
vision for executing her engagement, his Imperial 
Majesty, the Sultan, further consents to assign 
the Island of Cyprus to be occupied and adminis¬ 
tered by England.’ Thus England is trebly 


264 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


bound to see that there is no misgovernment in 
the Turkish provinces inhabited by the Arme¬ 
nians. 

“ The Armenians themselves were disillusion¬ 
ized in their expectation of effectual protection 
pending the execution of reforms. For a time 
they were held in check, however, by English 
ministerial assurances that their interests would 
not suffer by substituting the collective guaranty 
of six Powers for one Power’s guaranty of reforms. 

“ But, so far as we know, the collective guar¬ 
anty has never assured a single reform among the 
Armenians. This does not mean that the Sultan 
has not made some seductive promises of reform, 
forced thereto by the many reports to their Gov¬ 
ernments by foreign consuls of Turkish atrocities. 
He has. The promises have generally been re¬ 
ceived by the Powers, and by the British in par¬ 
ticular, with ‘ a hope that the Porte will lose no 
time in bringing to justice the perpetrators of the 
outrage.’ Little, if any, definite action by the 
Powers has followed. England’s particular in¬ 
action has not unnaturally caused the bitter Ar¬ 
menian complaint that she had received Cyprus 
as the price of such inaction. 

“ From time to time in England a brave voice 
has been lifted in protest. Lord Sherbrooke de¬ 
clared that English policy ‘ had turned the keys 
of hell’ upon the Christians of Turkey, and Glad¬ 
stone thus replied to a specious statement: ‘Do 
not let me be told that one nation has no author¬ 
ity over another. Every nation and, if need be, 


WHO IS RESPONSIBLE ? 


265 

every human being has authority on behalf of 
humanity and justice.’ Had the English Govern¬ 
ment heeded this warning, the Armenian massa¬ 
cres might have been prevented. 

“ England’s inertness in compelling good gov¬ 
ernment in place of bad in the regions which she 
had sworn to protect was gratifyingly changed a 
fortnight ago. The British battleship Triumph 
appeared off Suadia, not far from Beirut, where 
outrages had been recurring, and the situation 
was immediately relieved. Why was not similar 
action taken whenever outrages have been re¬ 
ported in the provinces inhabited by the Arme¬ 
nians? And what would happen if England 
seized the principal Turkish ports and customs 
pending the introduction of reforms in those prov¬ 
inces? In other words, what would happen if 
England did her duty? ” 

It is noteworthy that the new administration 
has already started the crusade against several 
leading miscreants, criminals, and conspirators in 
the massacres. Indeed, without a severe punish¬ 
ment for the perpetrators and full justice to the 
victims, the lives of the Christians will be in dan¬ 
ger in the future, as they have been in the past. 


266 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


XIII. 

THE DA WN OF A NEW ERA . 

Since the last publication of this work many 
changes, both social and political, have taken place 
in Turkey. To make a list of them would re¬ 
quire a long chapter. The first Armenian mas¬ 
sacre, the Cretan uprising, the Macedonian revo¬ 
lution and atrocities, the Bulgarian independence, 
the general dissatisfaction among the native Chris¬ 
tians and even among the Moslems, the formation 
of the Young Turkey Party and their activities, 
the deposition of Abdul Hamid and the ascension 
of Mohammed the Fifth, the Cilician massacres, 
are the most interesting and memorable events 
which have taken place within the period of our 
recollection. “ What shall the destiny of Turkey 
be?” is a momentous question, about which 
opinions may be at variance, from pessimistic as 
well as optimistic standpoints. I see in all these 
changes, developments, and revolutions the invisi¬ 
ble hand of the Ruler of the Universe who caused 
the rise and fall of the nations in the past, and 
who will guide the destiny of Turkey for the 
happiness of His own people and for His glory. 

THE YOUNG TURKEY PARTY. 

Before I write on this subject I will give a very 
concise view of the “ Young Turkey Party,” of 



TURKISH STATESMEN. 


I. MIDHAT PASHA. 

The Author of the Constitution. 


2 . RIZA BEY, 

First President of the Chamber of Deputies. 


3. HAKKI BEY, 

The Turkish Ambassador to Washington. 

4. HON. GABRIEL NORADOONGIAN, 5. SAID PASHA, 

MINISTER OF PUBLIC WORKS, THE A MODERATE YOUNG TURK. 

ONLY ARMENIAN IN THE CABINET. 







THE YOUNG TURKEY PARTY. 267 

which lately so much has been written in the 
newspapers. 

The founding of the Young Turkey Party 
dates back to 1866, when several well-educated 
and liberal-minded young men and Turkish offi¬ 
cials of high rank fled the country and found refuge 
in London. Some of the young men entered the 
colleges and some of them published a paper 
named “ Hurreyet ,” which in Arabic means Free¬ 
dom. Here the Young Turkey Party had its 
birth. 

England and other European Powers did not 
give much encouragement to these patriotic 
refugees. Later these enthusiastic Turks left Lon¬ 
don for a more congenial atmosphere for their 
operations and settled in Paris. Here they con¬ 
tinued their work with unabated zeal. 

Abdul Hamid employed many spies to search 
out these Reformers and to report to him their 
activities from time to time, but they were clever 
enough to evade these spies and carry on their re¬ 
form ideas. 

Now in order that the subject of this chapter 
may be fully understood, let us glance back to the 
Russo-Turkish war in 1876, when at the close of 
the bloody engagement and after the Berlin Con¬ 
ference, the integrity of the Ottoman Empire was 
voiced by Great Britain, and encored by the 
Powers of Europe. This was rather fictitious, as 
the later developments proved the fallacy of such 
a declaration. The Young Turkey Party saw it. 
They undertook, therefore, to preserve the unity 


268 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


and integrity of the country without any in¬ 
tervention from the outside world. Though they 
were in the minority, they succeeded then in per¬ 
suading the young Sultan Abdul Hamid to grant 
a Constitutional Government. 

Midhat Pasha, then in the zenith of his power, 
was the champion of the new movement. The 
Sultan at first hesitated between the Old and 
Young Turks, but finally yielded to the latter’s 
demand and promised the Constitution. 

Later, Abdul Plamid, being influenced by the 
Anti-Constitutionalists, changed his mind and 
revoked his promise. In consequence, Midhat 
Pasha died in exile, and many strong friends of 
the new movement found refuge in Europe. 
There they became better acquainted with the 
political affairs of Europe. They saw the situa¬ 
tion perfectly well, and were fully persuaded that 
the unity, safety, and stability of the Turkish 
Empire lay entirety in the transformation and re¬ 
generation of the Government. They used their 
patriotic paper and wrote articles upon articles 
to their compatriots at home, and enlightened 
them on the supreme subject. And as the affairs 
of the Empire meanwhile went from bad to worse, 
they were very successful in gaining new friends, 
not only among the Turks, but among all classes 
and races of their native land. 

Depending upon the well-drilled and disciplined 
Albanian army, that were in sympathy with the 
new movement, the young Turks tried about a 
year ago to push their claim, and urged the Sul- 


THE YOUNG TURKEY PARTY. 269 

tan, now an old man, to grant the Constitution 
which he had promised when he had ascended 
the throne. Abdul Hamid hesitated again. This 
time he was rather compelled to sign the Consti¬ 
tution, but with the intention of destroying it at 
the first opportunity. 

The opening of Parliament was indeed magnifi¬ 
cent in its simplicity. The representatives of the 
peoples were there. Eloquent speeches were made 
in various languages. Songs and patriotic airs 
were sung, among which Midhat’s famous Liberty 
song was cheered by thousands. It was a day of 
rejoicing everywhere. It was a day of jubilee. 
The country was congratulated by foreign nations, 
and cheerful letters came even from the other 
parts of the Moslem world. Our President Roose¬ 
velt was not slow to encore heartily the greetings 
of the civilized world. 

The most striking fact in connection with the 
opening of Parliament was that a great change 
like this—from fossilified autocracy to a Consti¬ 
tutional Government—passed without any dis¬ 
turbance. It was thought by many that such a 
radical change in government would cause a 
great outbreak, would inflame Moslem fanaticism, 
and bring their religious frenzy to such a high 
pitch that a general bloodshed would follow. For¬ 
tunately nothing happened. All was quiet. Peo¬ 
ple from every section of the country joined the 
leaders, who styled themselves “The Ottoman 
Committee of Union and Progress.” 

The Sultan, Abdul Hamid, however, was not 


270 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


satisfied with the whole affair. He indeed did not 
expect such a peaceful transformation of the Gov¬ 
ernment. He saw and realized that he was shorn 
of his power and autocracy. He thought some¬ 
thing must be done. He was quite sure still that 
there was a faint hope of reclaiming his prestige. 
He knew well that still tt 3 Moslem clergy, and a 
great multitude of the Moslem population in Asia, 
and a part of his soldiers were loyal to him. Be¬ 
sides, he was aware that the “ Liberal Party ” 
was not altogether in harmony with “ The Com¬ 
mittee of Union and Progress.” Yes ! the old 
Sultan saw the chance and grasped his opportu¬ 
nity to kill the Constitution in its cradle, which 
brought about that memorable and lamentable 
day in Constantinople, April 13, 1909. 

It will be easily observed that the outbreak in 
the capital was nothing more than a counter-rev¬ 
olution planned and headed by Abdul Hamid. 
During the revolution, which almost took the 
aspect of a civil war, a number of staunch friends 
of the Constitution were slain and others fled the 
capital. For a while it looked very dark for the 
Constitutionalists. The Sultan was very jubilant; 
his plans worked apparently well, his triumph 
seemed complete, and the new regime to be once 
more crushed. 

Alas! he was mistaken. The political affairs 
of the Empire were now quite different from what 
they were thirty years before. His and his con¬ 
spirators’ triumph was indeed of short duration. 
Yet even in that little time how terrible was the 


THE YOUNG TURKEY PARTY. 2 Jl 

fighting! It was a fight such as had never occurred 
before, a fight extraordinary. Yes ! it was the 
fight of Turk against Turk, Mohammedan against 
Mohammedan, brother against brother, the Cres¬ 
cent against the Crescent. While this fight was 
going on in Constantinople, several hundred miles 
away in Cilicia there was another struggle and 
another fight. Over there the Turk was against 
the Armenian, the Moslem against the Christian, 
the Crescent against the Cross. As the nineteenth 
century closed with the Turko-Armeno tragedy, 
the twentieth century opened with a similar fatality. 

The hero in Constantinople was not the old 
Sultan, but the comparatively young General 
Shefket Pasha. He arrived at the head of his 
Albanian regiment to redeem the hour and restore 
the Constitution. He occupied both banks of the 
Golden Horn, almost opposite the barracks of the 
Sultan’s soldiers. 

When the fetva of Sheikh-ul-Islam declared 
that “Abdul Hamid has forfeited the throne by 
perfidy and bloodguiltiness,” he was doomed. 
He begged for his life. 

He whose reign was perhaps the bloodiest of 
all the Ottoman sovereigns, which began by the 
atrocities in Bulgaria and ended by the massacres 
in Armenia—he who sat on his bloody throne 
more years than any Sultan except one—now 
saw the end of his tyranny, now realized the end 
of his career. So the sun of “ the most astute 
diplomat of Europe” sank to rise no more! 

The ex-Sultan was succeeded by his brother 


2J2 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


Reshad Effendi, who was proclaimed Sultan Mo¬ 
hammed the Fifth. He soon won popularity by 
his democratic disposition. His coronation took 
place as usual at the Mosque of Eyoub. The 
coronation consists of investment with the Sword 
of Othman, the first Sultan of the dynasty. 

Now the paramount question is, “How long 
will the Turkish Constitution live?” It is too 
soon to reply. Time will answer that. There 
are at present some oppositions, obstructions, and 
obstacles, which first ought to be removed before 
there can be the establishment of a real Constitu¬ 
tional Government. 

For example: 

1. The general illiteracy of the masses. 

2. The general passiveness of the majority of 
the people, they having no political ambition, 
experience, and discipline. 

3. The racial prejudices of long standing. 

4. The religious rivalry and fanaticism of a 
chronic nature. 

5. The antagonism of a great majority of the 
Moslem population, who stand by the “ Moham¬ 
medan League ” and for Sheriat against the Con¬ 
stitution. 

There may be some more impediments in the 
way of a successful Constitutional Government, 
but the above is sufficient to show that the fight 
of the friends of the new regime is just begun. 

It is sincerely hoped that the present adminis¬ 
tration will be so successful that the people will en¬ 
joy even a rudimental Constitution, and that life, 



THE PRESENT SULTAN AND DOLMA BAGHTCHE PALACE. 











* 






















- 





























THE YOUNG TURKEY PARTY. 


273 


honor, and property will be safe-guarded. It is 
very gratifying to notice that since the new regime 
was inaugurated there is marked activity in the 
industrial circles of the country. According to 
the despatches from Constantinople to Washing¬ 
ton, to the State Department, several American 
corporations are trying to obtain concessions 
from the Turkish authorities to invest a consider¬ 
able amount of capital in various improvements. 
It is earnestly hoped that the Parliamentary Gov¬ 
ernment, considering the lack of adequate facili¬ 
ties of communication and transit, of lighting and 
telephone plants, harbor and irrigation works, 
will readily grant the desired concessions for the 
benefit of the commonwealth. 

Let us sincerely hope that a new era has 
dawned upon the country, and that the old sys¬ 
tem of government has practically given way to 
the new, and that under the present administra¬ 
tion the country will develop in all its mineral, 
agricultural, commercial, industrial, and educa¬ 
tional departments, so the true civilization which 
was dreamed of by few, hoped for by many, will be 
realized by all. 

The Turkish Constitution, which they call 
“ Kanoone Esasi,” has 119 articles. I present 
here a rough translation of several extracts: 

Art. 1. The Ottoman Empire in all her present 
lands or countries, ports, and privileged provinces 
forms an entirety. They cannot be at any time or 
by any cause separated or disintegrated. 

Art. 8. All those who are subjects of the 


274 LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 

Turkish Empire, of whatever religion or denom¬ 
ination, without exception are called Osmanlis. 

Art. 11. The religion of the Ottoman Empire 
is Mohammedanism; at the same time all religions 
that are not against the morality and tranquillity 
of the public are free, and, as formerly, all these 
religions, their rights and privileges, are under 
the protection of the Ottoman Government. 

Art. 12. The Press is free. 

Art. 13. The Turkish subjects have the privi¬ 
lege by law to form commercial, agricultural, and 
other societies or companies. 

Art. 15. Education is free. 

Art. 16. All schools are under the care of the 
Government, and in order to have a uniform 
education of the Turkish subjects, various methods 
will be undertaken. There will be no hindrance 
to the religious education of different nations. 

Art. 19. All the employes of the government 
are called to various offices according to their 
ability. 

Art. 26. All kinds of torments or tortures are 
forbidden. 

Art. 83. Every individual has the right to pro¬ 
tect himself by any means within the sphere of 
law. 

THE NEW SULTAN. 

According to the latest despatches from Con¬ 
stantinople, when the present Sultan was notified 
of his succession to the throne of his deposed 
brother, his first words were, “I will sacrifice my 


THE NEW SULTAN. 


275 


whole life to the people and the Constitution.” 
He declared also that he will not live in Yildiz 
Kiosk, where his imperial brother lived, that he 
prefers to live in Dolma Baghtche Palace, where 
he used to live for years as a prisoner, being for¬ 
bidden even to use the rooms looking out on the 
Bosphorus. He also said that the Yildiz Kiosk 
should be given to the nation and turned into a 
museum, and the people be allowed to visit it. 
When the Grand Vizier suggested that a new 
palace might be built for his Majesty, he would 
not entertain such an idea, but he declared that 
Dolma-Baghtchd should be modernized. He said 
that he had heard and read that there were 
machines which the people put into the houses 
by means of which they can talk to others at 
great distances without seeing them. The Sultan 
of course meant the telephone, which he had 
never seen in his life, as the use of it was gener¬ 
ally forbidden by the ex-Sultan. 

The Sultan Mohammed V. is very economical. 
Instead of buying new furniture for his palace he 
ordered that the furniture at Yildiz should be 
transferred to furnish Dolma-Baghtchd. By doing 
so he gave a very sound and good example to the 
Pashas and other officials of the country to live 
the simple life and not in prodigality and extrava¬ 
gance. 

The Sultan while prisoner was surrounded by 
many spies, who reported minutely his every 
motion to the ex-Sultan, consequently he never 
spoke above a whisper. When he became Sultan 


276 


LIFE IN THE ORIENT. 


he still kept the same way of speaking for some 
time. 

When Ahmid Rija Bey announced his ascen¬ 
sion to the Ottoman throne, the new Sultan de¬ 
sired to give him some present, but the Bey very 
politely refused the offer, but asked his Majesty 
to give him the pen which the chukt-uleslam used 
for the deposition of his predecessor. At this the 
Sultan expressed his sorrow that his brother was 
hated so. But Rija Bey immediately replied that 
the same pen which was used for the deposition 
of his brother was used also for his own ascension. 

Indeed, one of the most charming character¬ 
istics of Mohammed V. is his forgetfulness and 
forgiveness of the wrongs he had suffered. When 
General Shefket Pasha arrived at the capital at 
the head of his army, the first question of the 
Sultan was about the fate of his deposed brother. 
He asked that his life should be spared, and that 
instead of being sent to Salonica as an exile he 
should be allowed to live in one of the palaces in 
Constantinople. He was assured that the life of 
his brother would not be touched, but that his 
living in the capital was impossible. 

Mohammed V. at his accession was sixty-four 
years old, two years younger than his exiled 
brother Hamid. 

He has three wives and four children, three of 
them being sons. His daughter, Princess Refia, 
has been married for several years. The names 
of his sons are Zia-Eddin, Medin-Eddin, and Omar 
Hilmi. If the reactionarists had succeeded in 


THE NEW SULTAN* 


2 77 


their plots, they were going to attempt to raise 
the eldest son of the ex-Sultan to the throne. 
Abdul Hamid was very anxious that his eldest 
son should be his successor. That being his pur¬ 
pose, he imprisoned his brother that he might 
accomplish his design. 

The present Sultan with all his amiable char¬ 
acteristics is an embodiment of sincerity. We 
have every reason to believe that he will keep his 
promise to hold up the new regime , to guarantee 
the constitution and enforce the administration. 
This done, there is no shadow of a doubt that 
under such brilliant auspices the country’s pros¬ 
pects are bright and its destiny is safe, sure, and 
secure. 











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